
Book IfP.'^s- 




-Pabuedy hv Overbeci 



En^ ^IjRS. SaMlU: 




lCch...S^Mark.l4-v. 



" -if 



BEAUTIES 



OF 



SACKED LITERATURE. 



[t.r.USTRATED BY EKiHT STF.KL KNGR.4 VING.S. 



EDITED BY 



THOMAS WYATT, A. M 

ADXaOR OF " THE SACRRD TABLEAUX," ETC. ETC. 



i 

" Scatter diligeutly iu ausceytible luiiids 

The germs of the Good and the Beautiful ! 
They will develop there to trees", bud, bloom, 
And bear the Kolden fi'uit of Paradise." 



LADIES 
NEW-ENGLAND ART UNION 

9 Bow Stseet, Chaei, estown. 

1852. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by 

James Muxroe & Company, 

Tn [ho Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



#"> 



BOSTON : 

'i'lI'UiS'rON', TOJJ.XY, ■5?>'" HMF.R50N 

31 DcvoTi;I«'ViStve9t. 



PREFACE. 



He is supremely happy, who, by well directed efforts, 
is able to advance the cause of Sacred Literature, and the 
means of unfolding to the reader of holy things, those 
mysteries of the Bible which to some are so dark and 
intricate. 

The Editor rejoices that he is permitted to be the instru- 
ment in the presentation of the following work to the 
Christian public. In it he trusts is embodied, under the 
names of truly eminent writers, a mass of sacred erudi- 
tion ; where the most remarkable incidents in the Holy 
Scriptures are clearly elucidated, and made equal to the 
capacity of the humblest reader. 

He would here present his grateful thanks to those 

who so generously aided him in this valuable work ; and 

refer them to that beautiful promise of the same Bible 

from which they have chosen their subjects : " Cast thy 

bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many 

days." 

T. W. 



\ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME. 

Joseph L. Chester, Esq Philadelphia ... 1 

THE TEMPEST STILLED. 

Rev. I. Gilborne, LL. D Philadelphia ... 5 

THE FALL OF BABYLON. 

Timothy Bigelow, A. M Boston ..... 7 

MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 

Rev. N. L. Fiothingham, D. D. . . Boston 14 

JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOREVER. 

Rev. C. C. Vanarsdale, D. D. . . . Philadelphia ... 27 

DANIEL IN THE LION's DEN. 

Rev. M. A. De Wolf Howe, D. D. . Philadelphia ... 29 

CONSOLATION FOR MORTALITY. 

W. Cullen Bryant, Esq New York .... 38 

PONTIUS PILATE. 

Rev. W. H. Furness, D. D. ... Philadelphia ... 41 

SONG OF THE MARTYRS. 

George Bettner, Esq New York ... 46 

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 

Rev. I. Kennaday, D. D Philadelphia ... 48 

heaven's LESSON. 

Mrs. L. H. Sigourney Hartford .... 59 

THE RESCUE OF MOSES. 

Rev. A. D. Gillette, A. M. ... Philadelphia ... 61 

RUTH AND NAOMI. 

Mrs. Riley Pittsburg" .... 74 

THE TREACHERY OF JUDAS. 

F. H. Duffee, Esq, ...... Philadelphia ... 76 

THE YOUTHFUL SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE. 

Rev. S. H. Cox, D. D Brooklyn .... 87 

JACOB IN THE HOUSE OF LABAN. 

Joseph L. Chester, Esq Philadelphia . . .101 



VI CONTENTS. 



CALL UPON ME IN THE DAY OF TROUBLE. 

James Rees, Esq Philadelphia . . 103 

MAKY MAGDALENE. 

W. Cullen Bryant, Esq. ..... New York ... 107 

THE REPENTANCE OF PETER. 

Thomas Wyatt, A. M Philadelphia . . 109 

JERUSALEM. 

Rev. S. H. Calhoun Springfield . . . 116 

PAUL REASONING WITH FELIX. 

Mrs. L. H. Sigourney Hartford .... 123 

BLIND BARTIMEUS. 

Rev. S. B. Howe, D. D New Brunswick . 126 

ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 

Mrs. Lydia Jane Pierson Alleghany . . . 137 

JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES. 

Rev. W. H. Furness, D. D. ... Philadelphia . . 142 

THE heart's song. 

Rev. A. C. Cox Hartford .... 151 

MOSES SEEING THE INVISIBLE. 

Rev. Joseph H. .Tones, D. D. . . . Philadelphia . . 153 

JESUS OF NAZARETH PASSETH BY. 

Mrs. L. H. Sigourney Hartford .... 166 

JESUS AT THE WELL OF SAMARIA. 

Rev. James Flint, D. D Salem 168 

LAZARUS. 

George Bettner, Esq New York . . . 181 

RUTH. 

Mrs. Lydia Jane Pierson Alleghany . . . 182 

SIMON PETER. 

Rev. F. W. Holland Boston . . . . 186 

THE CONTRAST OF OFFERINGS. 

Anson G. Chester, Esq 192 

PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 

Rev. A. Alexander, D. D. .... New York . . . 199 

MARY. 

Rev. C. C. Vanarsdale, D. D. . . Philadelphia . . 219 



ILLUSTRATIONS, 



ENGRAVED ON STEEL. 



Painters. 

Suffer the little Children to come unto Me. Overbeck. 

Moses smiting the Rock Mubillo. 

Daniel in the Lions' Den Zeigler. 

The Raising of Lazarus . Hilton. 

The Rescue of Moses Schopin. 

The youthful Saviour in the Temple . . Houbhaken. 

The Friend in Adversity Prentis. 

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives , . Allom. 



Engravers. 


Page 


Sadd. 


1 


DONEY. 


14 


DONEY. 


29 


Sadd. 


48 


DoNEY. 


61 


Ormsby, 


, 87 


Sadd. 


103 


Pelton. 


116 



"SUFFEE LITTLE CHILDEEN TO COME 

UNTO ME." 

BY JOSEPH L. CHESTER, ESQ, 

Above me hangs a Picture — one that Art 

And Genius have combined^ with rare success, 

To make a master-piece. No common soul. 

In idle dreaming, fancied the design ; 

But Inspiration, with her secret spell. 

Sat by the Artist's side, and on his hand 

Her finger press' d, that, when his pencil moved 

O'er the fair page, its lines were her's — not his : 

Christ with His crown of thorns and broken reed ! 

How rare a Face ! The thoughtless passer stands 

Transfixed, as that meek, mournful eye meets his. 

And sees no longer Art's elaborate work. 

But Christ Himself, as on that mournful day 

He bore the scourge, and drank the mingled draught. 

How o'er my vision pass the varied scenes 
1 



Z BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Of His eventful life, till, lost in thought, 
I almost bow the knee and lift my voice, 
Assured that 'tis no counterfeit I see. 

I can forgive the worshipper who bows 
Before this image, for I feel the power 
It has to teach the heart. 

It teacheth me : 
For ever, as I gaze, I see the Lord 
In some great scene He mingled in on earth. 
And, even now, the ages roll away. 
And I am taken back amid the crowd 
That hung upon his path in Holy Land. 
The vision deepens — let me write it here : — 

'T was evening in Judea, 

Through the day 
The Saviour taught the people, and the crowd 
Still lingered, for the magic of His words 
Held every ear, and gently won their hearts. 

Old men all their infirmities forgot. 
And swelled the number of His anxious train : 
Women were there, for He, whose voice they heard, 
Was unto them invested with a garb 
That won their gentle hearts with magic power. 

All classes had their representatives : 
The artisan forgot his implements. — 



SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME. 6 

The hewers and the drawers left their toil — 
The poor had holiday when He appeared. 

Thus through the day, untired, the Saviour toiled, 
And taught the people till the evening closed. 
And nature hade them seek their homes again. 

Yet did not all depart : a little group 
Still lingered, and, with timid steps, approached 
The Teacher, ere He passed heyond their town. 
And they were mothers : each had clasped in hers 
The Httle hands of children, or their breasts 
Sustained the infants, yet unused to walk. 

What sought they of the Saviour, that they bore 
Their offspring in their weary arms so late, 
And followed Him so far ? Thus were they asked, 
And by the Lord's disciples bade return. 
Who yet rebuked them that they still pursued. 

Not thus the Saviour : with a smile of love 
He gently turned, rebuking them instead. 
And bade the suppHants hasten to his side. 

And then He stood, while, round His sacred feet. 
The little cherubs clustered on their knees. 
And lifted up His hands and blessed them all. 
I see Him now : His lovely face is clothed 
With a peculiar holiness and love. 
From the eternal depth of those pure eyes, 
Beams with unusual radiance. 



4 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

He prays, 
And to His Father doth commend the lambs 
That are the emblems of His flock in heaven. 
Then gently stooping, to His sacred breast 
He folds them, one by one : on each pure brow 
His holy lips are pressed ; and then He says, 
" My Father's kingdom is of such as these." 

How blest those mothers as from His embrace 
They took again their children to their own ! 
How blest those children, into whose young hearts 
The Spirit of their Holy Saviour stole ! 

And so the Lord passed on, ere long to be 
The King in mockery as I see Him now. 



THE TEMPEST STILLED. 

BY THE REV. I. GILBORNE LYONS, LL. D. 

The strong winds burst on Judah's sea, 

Far peal'd the raging billow, 
The fires of heaven flash'd wrathfully, 

When Jesus press'd his pillow ; 
The light fi:ail bark was fiercely toss'd. 

From surge to dark surge leaping. 
For sails were torn and oars were lost. 

Yet Jesus still lay sleeping. 

When o'er that bark the loud waves roar'd. 

And blasts went howling round her, 
Those Hebrews rous'd their wearied Lord, — 

" Lord ! help us, or we founder ! " 
He said, " Ye waters, peace, be still ! " 

The chaf 'd waves sank reposing. 
As wild herds rest on field and hill. 

When clear calm days are closing. 
1* 



6 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

And turning to the startled men 

Who watch'd that surge subsiding, 
He spake in mournful accents then 

These words of righteous chiding, — 
" O ye, who thus fear wreck and death, 

As if by Heaven forsaken. 
How is it that ye have no faith, 

Or faith so quickly shaken '? " 

Then, then, those doubters saw with dread 

The wondrous scene before them ; 
Their limbs wax'd faint, their boldness fled, 

Strange awe stole creeping o'er them : — 
" This, this, they said, is Judah's Lord, 

For powers divine array Him : 
Behold ! He does but speak the word, 

And winds and waves obey Him ! " 



THE FALL OF BABYLON. 



BY TIMOTHY EIGELOW. 



The greatness and splendor of Babylon, the pro- 
phecies and omens that preceded its fall, and the 
deep shadows of Divine displeasure which have 
rested upon the spot for ages, combine to render 
the Chaldean city an object of universal but mel- 
ancholy interest. Situated in the most fertile portion 
of Western Asia, this metropolis possessed the 
varied riches and resources which are the united 
tribute of commerce, agriculture and art. In its 
marts, the emeralds and jaspers of Bactria, the gold- 
dust and dye-stuffs of India, the myrrh and the 
frankincense of Arabia, the pearls and the spices of 
Eastern Islands, the wool of Cashmire, and the 
ivory of Africa, were exchanged by Phoenician traf- 
fickers for the fine linen and embroidered vestments 
of Chaldean looms, and the luxuriant products of 
Babylonian gardens. In its midst, with eight towers 
one above another, rose the colossal temple of Belus, 



8 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

from whose summit the earHest astronomers gazed 
nightly at the stars, and whose mystic chambers 
were enriched and beautified with the spoils of 
vanquished nations, and the idolatrous offerings 
of ages. Still more conspicuous for architectural 
magnificence was the palace of the kings, — made 
famous by the hanging gardens which travellers 
from Athens praised, and which were adorned with 
those trees and flowers that Amytis had loved in her 
mountain-home of Ecbatana. Around the city were 
walls three hundred feet in height, seventy-five feet 
in width, and nearly fifty miles in extent. The 
inclosed area was divided into six hundred and 
seventy-six squares, variously appropriated to build- 
ings, pleasure-grounds and gardens. One hundred 
gates of massive brass opened to afford egress into 
the surrounding country; and from two hundred 
and fifty towers the sentinels kept constant watch 
for invaders and foes. Such, briefly, was the famous 
Babylon, whose foundation fable ascribes to Semi- 
ramis, but which, history informs us, was greatly 
enlarged and beautifled by Nebuchadnezzar and the 
Queen Nitocris. 

But when this imperial metropolis had ascended 
to the loftiest heights of earthly greatness ; when 
captive monarchs mourned within its prison walls, 



THE FALL OF BABYLON. 9 

and enslaved nations followed the homeward march 
of its triumphant armies ; when unnumbered wor- 
shippers thronged the courts of Belus, and pagan 
superstition invested the ministering priests with 
matchless wisdom and power ; at that very time the 
inspired prophet of God pronounced against the 
city these memorable but awful words : " Thus saith 
the Lord of hosts ; The broad walls of Babylon 
shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be 
burned with fire. And Babylon shall become heaps, 
a dwelling-place for dragons : It shall be a wilder- 
ness, a dry land, and a desert. And wild beasts of 
the desert, with the wild beasts of the islands, shall 
dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein : and it 
shall be no more inhabited for ever ; neither shall it 
be dwelt in from generation to generation." * 

The stream of time rolled along, and bore on its 
bosom the fulfilment of the prophetic denunciation. 
On a banquet night, — when the doom of Belshaz- 
zar, traced by no earthly hand, still blazed upon the 
palace walls, — the Modes and Persians captured the 
city, and slew the impious monarch and his nobles. 
Cyrus, with that elevation of mind that Xenophon 
ascribes to him, disdained to mutilate the monu- 

* Jeremiah. 



10 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

ments of art ; but Darius Hystaspes, having retaken 
the place after a desperate revolt, broke doTVTL the 
walls and removed the brazen gates. Xerxes, his 
son, returning from his disastrous Grecian expedi- 
tion, partly from a desire to overthrow the Sabian 
idolatry, but mainly with the design of enriching 
himself after the costly defeats of Salamis and Pla- 
tsea, plundered the golden treasures of the temple, 
and left the building in ruins. The population of 
Babylon was greatly reduced by war, pestilence and 
emigration durmg the two hundred and fifty years 
succeeding its capture; and so light were the ties 
which bound the remaining inhabitants to their 
native land, that at the founding of Seleucia on the 
Tigris, they chiefly removed to this new metropolis. 
Indeed, so deserted did the old city become, that 
when Strabo was there, he found it almost desolate ; 
and travellers of a later day reported, that the pro- 
phecies which foretold that " Babylon should be 
Avithout an inhabitant," and " wild beasts should 
dwell in her pleasant palaces," were at length 
accomplished. 

Thus night closed upon Babylon ; its ruin was 
total. The armies of Parthia and Persia, of Rome 
and Arabia, of Tartary and Turkey, have swept by 
the spot ; but whether victorious or vanquished, 



THE FALL OF BABYLON. 11 

their shouts or their sighs were not echoed in the 
palace of Nebuchadnezzar. Kings and khans, emirs 
and emperors, caliphs and sultans, have held sway 
over the land ; but they did not repair to the plains 
of Shinar to muse over the fall of monarchs once as 
mighty as themselves. The march of Genghis Khan 
and Tamerlane lay near the ruined city ; but they 
turned not aside from their paths of blood to study 
the greatest lesson ever read to conquerors or kings. 
In the neighborhood, the Magi have discussed the 
doctrines of the Zend Avesta; and the white flag 
of the Ommiades, and the black banner of the 
Abbassides, have been unfurled by rival sects of 
Moslems ; but no Chaldean priest came forth firom 
the silent temple of Belus to dispute the authority 
of Zoroaster or Mahomet. It seemed as if the 
evil spirit of the old Persian theology had tri- 
umphed over Ormuzd, the principle of light, and at 
last reigned with absolute dominion amid its native 
darkness. 

Fourteen hours' ride firom Bagdad, over a level 
country crossed by numerous decayed canals, brings 
the traveller to all that now remains of Babylon. 
The ruins are situated near the town of Hillah, and 
lie mainly on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. 
AVhen seen fi'om a distance, they appear like hills of 



12 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

various height and extent ; but on a nearer survey, 
fragments of bricks and pottery, figured tiles and 
decayed walls, show the former residence of man. 
Six miles from Hillah to the south may be traced 
the greatest ruin in the neighborhood, called by the 
natives Birs Nemroud, and supposed by Rich and 
Porter to be the remains of the temple of Belus. 
The names of Mujillebe, Amran and Kasr have 
been assigned to the principal mounds on the north ; 
all of which are of vast size and objects of deep 
interest, but the latter is mainly important from its 
marking the site of the royal palace. The walls 
here standing, which are eight feet in thickness, 
are composed of the finest material; and so weE 
have these fragments retained their original beauty, 
that when first seen they look like the work of 
modem times. An old and solitary tree, situated 
three hundred feet from these walls, is all that now 
reminds the traveller of the princely groves that 
waved in the hanging gardens ; and no other trace 
is seen upon the rums of that green drapery with 
which nature often mantles the crumbling works of 
art. The inhabitans of Hillah say that it is danger- 
ous to pproach either Mujillebe or Kasr after sun- 
set, because those spots are haunted ; and persons 
less superstitious than modern Arabs might imagine, 



THE FALL OF BABYLON. 13 

that spirits of the past would indeed dwell within 
those colossal ruins. 

As we linger among these giant foot-prints of de- 
parted empire, let us remember with reverence and 
fear that Almighty Being, who can thus humble the 
pride and the power of nations. In the morning 
twilight of Revelation, His prophets, who stood up- 
on the mountains of observation, denounced Divine 
retribution against the impious and the idolatrous. 
But although these early harbingers have disappear- 
ed before the sun-light of the Christian dispensation, 
we yet have, proceeding from the Holy Oracle, a sure 
prophecy against tyranny and sin. The roll of fallen 
empires, which have trampled upon weakness and 
oppressed humanity, is not complete. The ruined 
cities, destined to declare through ages the terrible 
doom that awaits national wickedness, are not all 
numbered. And whatever clouds may rest upon the 
world's unwritten history, this at least we know — 
that boundless wealth, and luxuriant harvests, and 
broad domains, and mighty ramparts, can never avert 
a country's fall, unless the people be virtuous and 
fee, and the pillars of the state be established upon 
the immutable foundations of Justice and Truth. 



'1 



MOSES SMITING THE EOCK. 

BY REV. N. L. FROTHINGHAM, D. D. 

The rock, before which Moses is here represented 
with his people around him, proved to be a memo- 
rable place in the Hebrew annals, and one of deep 
and melancholy interest in the life of the Hebrew 
chief It was here that he buried Miriam, his pro- 
phetic sister, in the sands of the desert ; and it was 
here the decree was pronounced against himself, 
that for his mistrust and petulance, through which 
he had failed to sanctify the Lord in the sight of 
the children of Israel, he should not be permitted 
to lead them in to possess the promised land, to- 
wards which their march was directed. This point 
of their ancient history deserves attention, from the 
frequency with which it is alluded to, both in the 
Old and the New Testament. It leads forward the 
mind also to religious thoughts, that are distinct 
from the literal story, but most naturally suggested 
by it. 




T, Doney.sc. 



'§Eg COMMAE'DI^G TME Wi^TEE OUT OF TME liOC^o 



MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 15 

I cannot think of that scene in the wilderness 
which is here depicted, — the barren crag, the 
desolate prospect, the murmuring tribes and their 
impatient leader, the smiting of the rock and the 
gushing out of the waters ; without thinking at the 
same time of the many weary and dreary passages 
that befall, in human life, the mourning and rebel- 
lion of unsubdued minds, and the misgivings and 
unreasonableness even of faithful persons, while the 
miraculous goodness of God breaks forth over the 
whole, making refreshment and revival flow down 
from flinty discouragements and through the parched 
waste. 

But before coming to the spiritual and accommo- 
dated view of the Scripture account, it will be best 
to take a survey of the facts themselves, as they are 
recorded in the books of Exodus and Numbers. 
The fortieth and last year of the tedious wanderings 
of the Israelites had now begun. But as their sea- 
son of trial drew towards its close, their patience 
was ending likewise. They were in a land of 
drought. They looked to the rising and setting 
sun, but its hot rays were reflected from no sur- 
face of stream or lake. They were drying up with 
tliirst. Then, in their distress, they broke into 
desponding complaints and mutinous reproaches. 



16 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

" Would God that we had died when our brethren 
died ! And why have ye brought up the congre- 
gation of the Lord into this evil place ; — a place 
without grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates, 
and where there is no water to drink 1 " The di- 
vine word then came to the disheartened lawgiver, 
that he should " speak to the rock before their 
eyes," and it should yield to them the supplies that 
they were murmuring after. He did as he was 
commanded ; but not in the temper of confidence or 
calmness that so great an occasion required. In- 
stead of addressing the stony cliff with the dignity 
of his commissioned power, and the faith which his 
wonderful experience should have forbidden ever to 
fail him, his speech was turned against his people 
in passionate rebuke : " Hear now, ye rebels ! are 
we to bring you water out of this rock 1 " Whether 
his sin lay in the feelings that have now been men- 
tioned; or whether it may not be found in the 
arrogance, with which at such a season he could 
speak of himself, instead of ascribing the whole 
glory to God; the shortness of the account does 
not permit us to determine. But from that hour 
sentence was pronounced against both the brothers, 
the legislator and the priest. " Because ye believed 
me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children 



MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 



17 



of Israel, therefore ye shall not brmg this congre- 
gation into the land which I have given them." 
Aaron was soon called up a mountain upon the 
coast of Edom, in the top of which he solemnly laid 
aside the robes of his office and the garment of 
mortality at the same moment ; while Moses jour- 
neyed on a little longer, till from the summit of 
Mount Pisgah, with his eye undimmed and his 
natural force unabated, he was summoned to look 
his first and his last upon that country of hope, 
which was destined to fill so large a space in the 
memories and destinies of mankind. 

" Can we bring you water out of this rock 1 " 
The water nevertheless came ; and that by the 
simple blow of a staff, since such was the good 
pleasure of the Lord. But as if his mercy must 
always stand in connection with the unreasonable- 
ness of those who need, and the unworthiness of 
those who enjoy it, this very gift had to be com- 
memorated under a title of reproof The water was 
named Meribah, — contention. 

How many generations of men have come and 
gone, since those tribes of Jacob passed through 
their wanderings and their fate ! What a long 
course of time has been uttering its revelations to 
the earth, since the prophet lifted his rod over its 

2* 



18 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

divided streams and cloven mountains ! Yet the 
dispositions of the human heart remain as they 
were. There is the same spirit in the world of 
thankfulness and complaint. There is the same 
spirit from above of forbearance and bounty. The 
power of a gracious Providence still opens the veins 
of the dry stone, and gives drink in a fainting land. 
I will name some of these analogies. They should 
inspire patience and gratitude, a deeper submission 
to the necessities of life, a more fervent praise amidst 
our benefits, and a livelier faith in our prayers. 

Moses said to his murmuring people, " Must we 
bring you water out of the rock 1 " Are we expected 
to do it 1 Are we able to do it ? And yet this 
miracle is continually wrought. It is performed in 
the world around us, the visible creation; in the 
world over us, the providential course of events; 
and in the world within us, the more intimate 
sphere of our thoughts and feelings, our truest 
sorrows and joys. Every where water flows from 
the rock; the softest of all refreshments from the 
most intractable and unpromising substance that 
the earth bears. 

Nature is the first to work this wonder. The 
streams that keep all her productions fresh do not 
have their origin, for the most part, in the fruitful 



MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 19 

lowlands or the gentle hills ; not in spots of pleasant 
resort ; not among the busy pursuits of men. We 
must seek for their outlets in rough caverns. We 
must trace them to their almost inaccessible springs 
in the mountain steeps. From thence they roll 
down through the rents and fissures which God has 
opened for them, to replenish the lower fountains, to 
prepare seats for rich cities upon their banks, and 
to fertilize the plains that would else be barren 
solitudes. Such is the operation of Nature. Prov- 
idence then takes up and repeats the marvellous 
work. It shows us perpetual instances of the most 
valuable blessings collected and condensed in the 
cells of a stern experience ; flowing but at the 
urgent call of our wants ; struck out as if by the 
rod of rebuke and sorrow. It is not otherwise with 
what is going on in the processes of the secret Soul. 
The sweetest consolations are drawn along through 
rugged channels. The life of the noblest motives 
and brightest hopes is due to an upper and solemn 
and inexplicable source. 

Look at the Christian Eevelation ; the Gospel of 
truth, grace, and joy. As we contemplate it in its 
dark beginnings, among the hills of Judea, among 
the hard trials of him who issued it, and the obdurate 
hearts of those who rejected it, may we not fitly 



20 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

describe it as water out of the rock? There is the 
authority of an apostle for doing this. St. Paul refers 
to the very history now under consideration, and 
says that the people on that occasion drank of the 
spiritual drink that followed them, — even Christ. 
In whatever sense his words are to be understood, 
— whether he intended an actual type of the Chris- 
tian faith, or was only using one of those figures of 
speech with which his writings abound, — he at 
least makes the allusion. And if it would bear to 
be applied to that ancient race, so long before the 
coming of the promised one, it may surely be 
adopted by us, who are the witnesses and receivers 
of the blessing that he has diffused over the world. 
" If any man thirst," cried Jesus himself, " let him 
come unto me and drink. Whosoever drinketh of 
the water that I shall give him shall thirst no more ; 
but it shall be in him a fountain of water springing 
up into everlasting life." Now this well of mercy 
was opened among the most discouraging circum- 
stances. What was there to indicate it in Bethle- 
hem and Nazareth; in the state of the world, 
Jewish or Gentile ; in the desert where the austere 
John was preaching ; in the lofty and repidsive 
aspect of the cause, which he stood there to pro- 
claim ; in the murmurs that prevailed every where 



MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 21 

around him of ignorant and factious men, — an 
unreconciled world ? He who was the desire of 
the nations presented at first sight no form nor 
comeliness that any should desire him. Few were 
willing to partake of his offered cup, or to be 
washed in his baptism of afflictions. The first 
effect of his word, as he himself predicted, was not 
peace but variance. Poured out amidst striving 
tongues, and apparently but increasing their strife, 
its name was Meribah, — contention. Yet such as it 
was, apart from the world and placed among appear- 
ances that were severe and joyless, it was appointed 
and sent by the Divine Providence to renovate the 
earth. The solitary place was glad at its coming, 
and the wilderness rejoiced under it and blossomed 
as the rose. We who see it from this distance of 
time, taking its course through every climate upon 
the globe, strong in its deep current but merciful in 
its ministrations ; sweeping away the refuges of lies 
and corruptions of ages, and wearing down with its 
undermining flood the proudest holds of unright- 
eous power, and at the same time reviving the spirit 
of the world's disconsolate ones ; so gentle in its 
office as to submit to beuig taken up in household 
vessels for the feverish Kps and way-worn soul of 
the poorest child of Adam ; — we who have seen all 



22 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

this may well give glory to God, who in such a mar- 
vellous way has prepared his own praise and our 
salvation ; who from a small and secret and gloomy 
origin has sent joy and life all ahroad ; who out of 
Egypt, that land of trouble and anguish, from 
whence come the young and old lion, the viper and 
fiery serpent, has called his Son. 

Such was the method in which the Lord wrought, 
when he set up his great covenant of compassion 
wdth his creatures below. And his ways are even. 
What we have seen once, we shall see again. A 
like arrangement with that which is found in one of 
his conspicuous dealings shall be displayed in the 
rest. If we turn from the dispensation of our holy 
religion to the common appointments of life, we 
shall be struck with the same thing ; — gracious 
effects from rigid causes ; — water out of the rock. 

Let us go and put questions to Labor, and Hard- 
ship, and Peril, and Pain, and Deprivation, and Sor- 
row. They are rough materials, we know. They 
are not such things as in our youth we care to an- 
ticipate, or in our age we should love to lie down 
by. We are ready to complain, as the Hebrew hosts 
did, when we look up at their sharp sides, and the 
whole world seems to be a withered region around 
us. But still let us question with them. They 



MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 23 

have an answer for us, when they are addressed in 
the way that God chooses, — and a friendly answer. 
They are not so inexorable as they appear. If we 
seek a blessing from them we shall find it. If we 
strike upon their stubborn sides they shall be 
opened to us. Nay, more. They offer gifts that do 
not depend on our reasonableness, and do not wait 
for our importunity. If we refuse to ask, they will 
still have some blessing to bestow. If we refuse to 
knock, they will yield of their own accord, and 
prove that the Eternal Benevolence did not estab- 
lish them in vain. If we reflect upon them in the 
order in which they have just been named, we may 
learn to estimate them more justly and highly than 
is done by the general mass of unreflecting, indo- 
lent, discontented men. " Speak to the rock." 

The first is Labor. It looks arduous and difficult. 
The heart sinks, perhaps, at being told that it must 
draw from thence its most cheerful resources. And 
yet it must be told so. It is true. Nothing is more 
true. We must toil if we would have any rest. 
We must endeavor if we would attain to any gen- 
erous satisfaction. Men may think to resist the de- 
cree. But it is as fixed as the nature of their minds 
and the conditions of their being. There is no more 
peace for those who will do nothing, than for those 



24 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

who do worse. Effort, strenuously maintained, and 
in view of worthy objects, is as strong a pledge for 
the enjoyment as it is for the usefulness of life. 

Hardship and Peril rise next. There is nothing 
lovely in their frowning eminences. It will not be 
strange if we are sometimes dismayed at them ; if, 
like the children of Israel who wished they could 
retreat into Egypt, we vainly long to return to our 
careless childhood again ; where if we were re- 
strained we were fed, and if our employments were 
less honorable they were more secure. But while 
the law of the Universe forbids us either to go back 
or to pause, it teaches us that from the very hin- 
drances we dread will descend experience and skill 
and fortitude ; the vigor of resistance and the joy 
of escape ; the animation of those who are able to 
abide and willing to encounter the worst ; the noble 
consciousness of a strength within to react against 
every obstacle and misadventure. 

Pain, and Deprivation, and Sorrow, are the last 
to appear in this survey. They are more com- 
mon than the difficulties that were before named. 
No one is long exempted from one or the other 
of these; while the demands for great exertion 
are often remitted, and hardship and imminent 
danger are to many scarcely known. These are 



MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 25 

more depressing, too, than the rest. They do not 
summon the same activity to surmount them. 
They prompt the words of the drooping Israel- 
ites: "Would God that we had died when our 
brethren died ! " But God has ordained it so, that 
there should be shed from the sad and cruel 
passages in our lives peculiar benefits. Samson's 
riddle becomes a sober truth to the obedient heart. 
" Out of the devourer cometh forth food, and out 
of the terrible one cometh forth sweetness." — 
Wherever any one is made more faithful by being 
humbled under the hand of God, or grows better 
prepared by what he suffers, there is honey out of 
the Hon. There shall be a hive between his jaws. 
The very bitterness of grief shall be turned into 
comforts. From occasional suffering, loneliness and 
loss, sober reflections and kind sympathies are dif- 
fused over the mind. A peace comes in better than 
that which was interrupted, and a hope better than 
the one destroyed. We leam how to be submissive. 
We learn where to put our trust. The goodness of 
God and the resources of the soul are seen to be 
independent of all outward things. 

It may be that the heart of some sorrowful or 
desponding reader has followed me through the few 
pages that I have written upon the picture of Moses 

3 



26 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

smiting the rock. Let me claim its acquaintance, 
if I have been read by any such. Let me take 
the privilege vsdth him of the preacher that I 
am, and say to him as we part : Be re-assured, 
thou anxious one, thou afflicted one ! Trials may 
break out into unexpected comforts. You may add 
another to the crowd of those, w^ho have found it 
good for them that they were put to grief Eemem- 
ber that God is the Rock, and the High God the 
Redeemer. Remember the endurances and the glory 
of the Son of Man. Remember the brave examples 
of those whom his Gospel has taught patience, and 
be neither murmuring nor faint in your mind. 



JESUS CHEIST, 

THE SAME YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOREVER. 
BY REV. C. C. VANARSDALE, D. D. 

Mortal ! would'st thou know thy God ] 

Though from human eyes conceal'd, 
In the path the Saviour trod, 

View his character reveal'd ; 
As you see it there display'd 

To the sons of grief or shame, 
Though in glory now array'd, 

" Jesus Christ is still the same." 

See his eye with holy fire 

Flashing on the bold in sin ; 
Hear his words of dreadful ire 

To the soul defil'd within ; 
Endless wrath — remorse — and gloom - 

Agony — and quenchless flame. 
He declares shall be their doom ; 

" Jesus Christ is still the same." 



28 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

See him in his gentle love, 

Drying contrite sinners' tears. 
Pointing them to joys above, 

Hope inspiring — hushing fears ; 
See him cheering — blessing all, 

Who as humble suppliants came ; 
None in vain for mercy call, 

" Jesus Christ is still the same." 

See him ever guarding those. 

Who, in truth, in him rely. 
With an arm to crush their foes. 

With a love that cannot die ; 
Though the world grow cold or strange. 

Through all sorrow, toil, or shame, 
He will never — never change — 

" Jesus Christ is still the same." 




^i.CV^vedV T r ■-iiev.'^r.Y. 



DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 

BY REV. M. A. DE WOLF HOWE. 

What majesty is in the form and demeanor of 
this undaunted hero ! There is not one muscle that 
shrinks, nor one nerve that quivers on his lordly 
frame. His entire nature is in concert with his 
triumphant spirit. He is a picture of true heroism, 
where the soul is so great in its confidence, that it 
precludes the timid suggestions of reason, and 
endows even the flesh with an unflinching hardi- 
hood. See how erect he stands ! His knees do not 
tremble, or smite one against another. He does not 
recede with involuntary horror, as the savage beasts 
gather to his feet. He does not even watch them, 
as their fiery eye-balls glare upon him fi:om the 
black recesses of their den. He does not try the 
power of the human eye, to keep in aw^e the 
fierceness of the most insatiate among those lower 
creatures over which God once gave man dominion. 
There is no expression of command, no trace of 

3* 



30 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

defiance, no agony of fear on his heavenward 
countenance. His eye is fixed on the supernal 
Source of his pious confidence. His face is lumi- 
nous with the sentiment of another ancient worthy. 
" I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my 
help. My help cometh from the Lord, who made 
heaven and earth. He that keepeth me will not 
sleep." In a moment the place is all ahght with 
the glory of a messenger from the Almighty. " He 
maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame 
of fire." One that stood amid the hierarchy of 
heaven, beholding unveiled the face of God, in a 
flash of time is crouching in a den of the earth, 
charged to pray the lions firom the faithful Prophet, 
and to " shut their mouths." It is night, and Daniel 
is in a deep cave, from which even the light of stars 
is excluded by a sealed stone that covers its mouth. 
But there is no darkness in that abyss. The light 
of a heavenly presence is there. Caused to fly 
swiftly, the angel is still radiant with the splendors 
of his high abode ; and at every rustling of his 
wings there flashes out a glory that, like a thousand 
gleaming lances, keeps the iions at bay. But, see, 
the Prophet does not even look on his illustrious 
attendant ! The majesty of his faith speaks out in 
that high abstraction. The howling of the ravenous 



DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 31 

beasts could not divert his eye from God, when 
danger bade him look upward in entreaty and 
earnest expectation ; no more can the brightness of 
a present angel attract his gaze, now that security 
prompts him to render back the tribute of love and 
gratitude to the Almighty, who both empowered 
and sent forth this ministering spirit. 

Daniel's position m the Medo-Persian kingdom 
had been one of transcendent honor. He owned no 
superior but the king. The deference of every noble 
in the land had been his due. Homage obsequious, 
and universal as ambition could desire, had been 
rendered to him. Yet, in all the magnificence of 
his state he never received an obeisance so honorable 
to his character, so indicative of his pre-eminence 
among men, as that which now courts his feet ! 
He never stood upon a level of command so sublime 
and elevated, as that whereon he now enchains our 
notice — the monarch of the forest, and the prin- 
cipalities and powers in heavenly places, at once 
bending before him. And the secret of his suprem- 
acy here, in the wild beasts' lair, is the same which 
elevated him to the first presidency of a kingdom, 
wherein the captivity of his people had brought him 
as a vassal. ^'Because he believed in his God;'' 
therefore " an excellent spirit was in him ; " there- 



32 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

fore " was he faithful, neither was there any error 
or fault found in him." He had been no more 
captivated by the blandishments of the court, than 
frightened from his propriety by the roaring of the 
lions. His eye was ever fixed on God, insomuch 
that he could see nothmg on earth which he recog- 
nized as possessing power either to exalt or injure 
him. The picture, which shows him erect and 
heaven-seeking, alike while lions growl to excite his 
fears, and when a serving angel with ready obei- 
sance comes to inflame his pride, is the symbol of 
his spirit's attitude, in that earlier post of trial, 
when the favor of a king tempted his vanity, 
and the malice of his rivals laid siege against his 
courage. 

Daniel's heroism in the lion's den is the result of 
deliberate forecast, and calm anticipation of his 
danger, and of his only recourse for protection. He 
knew that in the pursuit of a career from which he 
could not turn, this firightful doom would be visited 
upon him. " The law of the Medes and Persians 
is, — that no decree nor statute which the king 
establisheth may be changed." An ordinance had 
been extorted from the king by the importunity of 
his nobles, which, in fidelity to God, the Prophet 
could not obey. And the penalty of transgression 



DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 33 

was made a part of the law, — to " be cast into the 
den of lions." The alternative was fearful. Some 
religious minds would have solved the problem of 
duty differently fi:om Daniel. They would have 
justified desist ance firom a practice of ordinary obli- 
gation, at a juncture when life itself would be the 
certain forfeit of its continuance. The law was 
to remain in force but thirty days. Is it right to 
forego — some would have asked — the opportuni- 
ties to serve God, and to do good in one's generation 
which might throng the years of future life, merely 
to seize occasion for one act of holy daring, and 
perish in its performance 1 Is it not rather a defi- 
ance than a trust of the providence of God ] And 
might not prayer be offered acceptably to God, and 
yet not offensively to bloodthirsty man 1 Would 
not the unabated yearning for conununion with 
Heaven, the daily uplifting of pious desire, suffice 
to meet his demands on the devotion of his servant, 
"who looketh not on the appearance, but on the 
heart 1 " These are specious words. If the thoughts 
which they express ever perplexed the mind of the 
Prophet, they found him prepared with counter 
considerations of paramount weight and importance. 
His daily devotions had become by the act of his 
enemies, and the weak compliance of the king, 



34 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

something more than an interview between him and 
his God. They were now the tests of his principle 
— the manifestations to an heathen court of the 
strength of an Hebrew's attachment to his fathers' 
God — and the measure of his rehance on his pro- 
tecting power. Talk of saving his life for future 
usefulness to his kind, and prolonged service to the 
Almighty ! Why, if he falters now, his influence 
will become lighter than vanity itself. The breath 
which he perishes to retain, will afford him a mere 
animal existence, not worthy the name of life. The 
most pitiable of all objects is a man who has turned 
recreant to his principles, and survives himself. His 
was not a case to be settled by the statement of a 
series of abstract truths, on the nature and essence 
of prayer. It was vastly important that Daniel did 
express^ as well as feel^ his unfailing trust in God : 
not that he should seek unwonted pubHcity in his 
devotions, and rush on martyrdom with the frenzy 
of a fanatic; but that calmly and thoughtfully, in 
his usual place, and at his accustomed times, he 
should " make supplication before his God " with 
" his window open," for it was aforetime, and " to- 
wards Jerusalem," the city of the Great King, — 
that he might not be charged with addressing that 
pitiful phantom of Divine power, who had issued a 



DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 35 

decree, that all the prayers of his subjects should be 
offered to himself. It was a great occasion, and 
Daniel was great enough to appreciate its dignity, 
and to meet its tremendous demands. He formed a 
purpose which he knew was right. In its pursuit 
he perilled nobody's safety but his own. It contem- 
plated no end but the glory of God. It needed for 
its successful issue no allies but the angels ; and 
with the counsel of the Holy One he pursued the 
even tenor of his way; his confidence as serene at 
midnight, in the depth of the lion's den, as at noon- 
day in his chamber, on his knees before God ! 

Let us visit the palace, and see how it fares with 
power, while its innocent victim makes his bed with 
the beasts. Darius, inflated by the compliments of 
his courtiers, has also adopted a purpose. The 
tongues which suggested it were guided by jealous 
hate and rancorous envy. He, poor tool, is trans- 
ported with vanity. He decrees that all entreaty 
shall be addressed to him alone for the space of 
thirty days ; and foresees no result, but his own 
pre-eminence in being honored with the attributes 
of a God. He stays not to inquire if his purpose be 
right. He is too besotted with self-complacency to 
reahze that the interests of thousands are to be 
compromised by his folly, and their consciences 



86 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

exposed to violation, or their lives to forfeiture. A 
design so rashly and selfishly conceived, suggests 
afterwards no sustaining and satisfactory reflections. 
The application of his mad decree to the prime 
minister of his kingdom is soon brought home to 
his startled apprehension ; and he discovers, when 
the fact can be fruitful of nothing but vain regrets, 
that, in attempting to usurp the worship which was 
due to God, he is entrapped for the extraction of the 
brightest luminary of his empire, and the loss even 
of a king's prerogative to rescue from a death of 
violence his counsellor and friend. The dainties 
that load his royal table cannot tempt his appetite, 
for his soul is sickened with disgust at his own 
headlong folly. His attendants draw near with 
tabret and harp to soothe his ear, and waft him on 
strains of soft music to the Elysium of pleasant 
dreams, but he will not hear their beguiling notes. 
His spirit revolts at the entertainment, while through 
his weakness the man to whom he owed nothing but 
kiadness is already a prey to the ravening beasts, or 
kept waking by their savage howls. " His sleep 
went from him." The down of his pillow cannot 
impart of its softness to his midnight musings. The 
gorgeous canopy, with its voluminous hangings, 

" Like clouds of crimson and amber," 



DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 37 

cannot shut out the " wakeful trouble " that haunts 
his soul. The common tide of pity no doubt sought 
Daniel with ready flow, and many a heart that 
rejected his religion, admired his consistency and 
bewailed his doom. But he who needed most the 
commiseration of his fellows received no sympathy ; 
for he passed the night in a palace, amid the elegan- 
cies which are vainly supposed to banish the misery 
they do but hide. When will the multitude learn 
that he is enviable, who, sustained by " a good con- 
science," is thrust into a den of lions, fearless of 
their rage, because sure of the favor of Grod ; and he 
is pitiable, who, beneath the Tyrian mantle of roy- 
alty, wears in his bosom the thorn of conscious 
wrong wrought by his own folly 1 That is majesty, 
which empowers a man to stand erect like Daniel, 
in every position, and to fix on Heaven an unfalter- 
ing eye. And that is servitude, — whatever the 
world may call it, — which, under all the garniture 
of life, stoops to baseness in pursuit of glory, and 
bends afterward in chagrin and mortification, under 
an incurable sense of its own weakness. 



CONSOLATION FOE MOETALITY. 



EY W. CULLEN BRYANT. 



Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
Thy image — Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again ; 
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
To mix forever with the elements — 
To be a brother to the insensible rock 
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mouth ; 
Yet not to thy earthly resting place 
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings 



CONSOLATION FOR MORTALITY. 39 

The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good — 

Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past — 

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun — the vales, 

Stretching in pensive quietness between — 

The venerable woods — rivers that move 

In majesty — and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all 

Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste — 

Are but the solemn declarations all 

Of the great tomb of man ! The golden sun. 

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 

Are shining on the sad abodes of death 

Through the still lapse of ages — all that tread 

The globe are but a handful to the tribes 

That slumber in its bosom — take the wings 

Of morning, and the Barean desert pierce. 

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 

Where rolls the Oregon, and hear no sounds 

Save its own dashings ; yet the dead are there. 

And millions in those solitudes, since first 
The flight of years began have laid them down 
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone ; 
So shalt thou rest — and what if thou shalt fall 
Unheeded by the living, and no friend 
Take note of thy departure 1 All that breathe 



40 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
His favorite phantom ; yes, all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glide away, the sons of men — 
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man — - 
Shall one by one be gathered by thy side 
By those who in their turn shall follow them. 
So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan that moves 
To that mysterious realm ; where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry slave of night, 
Scourged to his dungeon ; but sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



PONTIUS PILATE. 

BY THE REV. W. H. FURNESS. 

The impression derived from the Gospels of the 
moral character of the Poman prociu'ator, Pontius 
Pilate, is wonderfully \dvid and consistent; espe- 
cially when we consider how brief is his appearance 
in the Divine Drama. He had degenerated greatly 
fi:om the old Poman nobleness. Want of moral 
strength was his chief trait. This defect continually 
produces results as disastrous as those that flow 
from a determined malignity of purpose. 

Men of good feelings, but destitute of the guid- 
ance of a good principle, bring calamities upon 
themselves and others, as heavy as if they were 
actuated by the basest motives, and had deliberately 
said unto evil, " Be thou our good ! " Of the truth 
of this remark, Pilate aifords an ever memorable 
instance. That such was his character, is most 
evident from the Christian records. Almost every 
word attributed to him is in keeping with it. He 
4* 



42 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

appears to have been persuaded of the innocence of 
Jesus, but he had not courage to resist the mob 
headed by the priests. 

And the miserable expedients to which he had 
recourse to throw oif his inevitable responsibility, 
all betray the same imbecility. 

He first tried to get rid of the case altogether — 
to make the Jews settle it themselves. Failing in 
this, he caught at the mention of Galilee, and as 
soon as he was told that Jesus was a Galilean, he 
sent him to Herod, who was then at Jerusalem, and 
within whose jurisdiction Galilee was. But Herod 
returned the prisoner upon his hands. 

As the next resort, he attempted to persuade the 
populace to bestow their mercy upon Jesus, rather 
than Barabbas. I am aware that it was customary 
among the Romans to scourge those condemned to 
be crucified, just before execution. But from the 
different accounts we are led to infer, that Pilate 
caused this part of the punishment to be inflicted on 
Jesus, under the idea that it would appease the 
Jews. He brought the prisoner forth, bleeding 
under the recent tortures of the scourge, and called 
the attention of the mob to him, as if he hoped 
thereby to induce them to relent. Is not this pre- 
cisely the course a weak man under such circum- 



PONTIUS PILATE. 43 

stances would adopt, as if by yielding, he would not 
inflame and encourage the cruel passions of the 
people instead of subduing them 1 

When Jesus, seeing that words were of no avail, 
and that the magistrate had no strength to withstand 
the priests, preserved a dignified silence, Pilate 
attempts to make him speak by reminding him of 
his power. " Speakest thou not unto me 1 knowest 
thou not that I have power to release thee, and have 
power to crucify thee 1 " 

How palpable here is his cowardice in the idle 
vaunt of a power existing, as he must have known 
in his own soul, only in name ! 

He was awed too, as indeed a much stronger man 
might, and so weak a man must have been, by the 
look and bearing of the prisoner, connected with 
the rumor of his extraordinary career, which could 
not have failed to reach his ears ; with the dream 
of his wife, whose imagination, no doubt, had been 
excited by reports of the words and works of the 
remarkable person arraigned before her husband, 
and with the declaration of the priests that Jesus 
had called himself the Son of God. And then 
again, the symbolical act of washing his hands be- 
fore all the people, to which the numbers and uproar 
of the mob compelled Pilate to have recourse, to 



44 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

signify that lie had nothing to do with the death of 
Jesus, expressive though it was, was utterly vain. 
He could not throw off the responsibility of his 
office as he dashed the water from his hands ; and 
only a weak-minded man could have found any 
satisfaction in such a device. When the Jews indi- 
rectly menace him with an accusation of a want of 
loyalty to the Roman emperor, he is evidently 
alarmed and overborne. And he endeavors to con- 
ceal the effect of the threat under a ridicule, which 
he dwells upon so long that we may well suspect it 
to be affected. " No man," Dr. Johnson has some- 
where observed, "thinks much of that which he 
despises." Thus Pilate repeats the title of King in 
application to Jesus, too often to allow it to be 
believed that he really ridiculed and despised the 
charge which the Jews threatened to allege against 
him. " Behold your King ! " he said to the Jews. 
And when they shouted, " Away with him, crucify 
him," he replies, " Shall I crucify your King 1 " And 
the inscription which he caused to be affixed to the 
cross in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek — " This is the 
King of the Jews," and which he refused to alter, 
was partly dictated, we may suppose, by this state 
of mind, and partly by the mean desire of ridiculing 
the Jews, and so revenging himself upon them for 



PONTIUS PILATE. 45 

the painful fears they had awakened in his breast. 
That a suspicion of his loyalty should have made 
such an impression upon Pilate, cannot surprise us 
when we bring into view his subsequent fate, — 
banishment upon a charge of treason, — and the 
distrustful character of the reigning Emperor, Tibe- 
rius. 

With this prince, as Tacitus informs us, the charge 
of treason was the sum of all charges. 

In the instance of Pilate, as in the other cases 
mentioned, how all-unconscious are the sacred his- 
torians of the consistency they have preserved ! 
They have thought only of giving a simple relation 
of the things they had seen and heard. And the 
keeping, discernible between the details of their his- 
tories, is the natural result and accompaniment of 
real facts, a portion of that harmony pervading all 
real objects, all actual occurrences. In short, we 
behold here the presence of that Divinity that not 
only shapes our ends, but impresses and moulds all 
reahties, abrupt, rough-hewn, and disjointed as they 
may at first seem. 



SONG OF THE MAETYES. 

BY GEORGE BETTNER, ESQ. 

Light up the martyr's funeral pile, 

Consume the victim at the stake ; 

No murmur shall we breathe the while, 

Though round us quenchless flames may break ; 

For kindling up its proud disdain, 

The soul will spurn the fiery train. 

Oppressors, who aspire to wield 
The javelin of the maddened king ; 
A mightier arm shall safely shield, 
From all the weapons you can bring ; 
The God that watches o'er his own, 
Will place them on his promised throne. 

If in the flames we shall expire. 
It is a speedier aid they '11 lend. 



SONG OF THE MARTYRS. 47 

That in the prophet's car of fire, 
To brighter worlds we may ascend ; 
And this last sacrifice we give 
To make our faith increase and live. 

We '11 shrink not fi:om the burning brand, 
Though long it agonize the heart ; 
But firm and fearless vrill we stand, 
To shame the apostate's faithless part, 
Ours is the sacred cause to claim 
Alone, the martyr's wreath and fame. 

These lingering pangs shall death suffice — 

The Christian's rest, his home of prayer ; 

In yon illumined Paradise, 

'T is ours the first to enter there. 

And earthly conflicts we contemn 

To gain a starry diadem. 



THE EAISING OF LAZAEUS. 

BY REV. I. KENNADAY, D. D. 

To generous and sympathizing bosoms, nothing 
is more acutely painful, than a seeming forgetful- 
ness of those, to whom acts of affection have been 
extended. 

Having imparted to others every kindness which 
sorrow could exact, or benevolence render, they 
naturally look to such, for condolence at least, 
when anguish is the portion of their own hearts. 

That the bereaved sisters of Lazarus were tempted 
to suppose themselves for a while forgotten by the 
Saviour, is not improbable ; when we ponder their 
language, and consider the severity of their trial. 
The devotedness of these sisters was directed at all 
times to render their home in Bethany a place of 
repose and refreshing to the " man of sorrows." To 
the loveliness of that home he often retired from 
the fatigues and excitements of Jerusalem, and there 
he frequently paused in his approach to that great 




ExLaiaved'ov H.S. S add.lTX 



lS IRAI[§iriT(& OF TLASARUT' 



S^Jo'hrL-di.II.y.44-. 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 49 

city, which was the chief arena of his contests, and 
which was the ultimate scene of his triumph over 
death. At Bethany he ever found a home in which 
there were hearts purely devoted to him ; the inten- 
sity of the affection of Mary in the yielding of her 
heart to the full occupancy of his word, gives 
evidence ; while the affection of Martha was no 
less exhibited in the profusion of a practical hos- 
pitality. 

Never had the pilgrim Saviour to say in the midst 
of such friends, " Ye gave me no water for my feet ! " 
Always there was in readiness " an upper place," 
where he and his disciples could " keep the feast." 

And " Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and 
Lazarus." But now this Lazarus is sick — is dead 
— is entombed — the sisters are overwhelmed in 
grief, and Jesus is not with them. 

There was a silence over Bethany, and many 
wondered at the absence of " the Christ." " That 
many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to 
comfort them concerning their brother," indicates 
that the family was one of some repute, and that 
the death of Lazarus was the occasion of interest 
and sorrow. 

Amid the thousands of Jerusalem the death, even 
of such a man, would perhaps have excited but 

5 



50 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

little attention, but in Bethany he would be known 
to all. His compeers in age had shared his inti- 
macy; the old had admired him for his assiduous 
attentions to his sisters ; and the young had learned 
to reverence him as an example of unostentatious 
integrity. 

Every family sympathized in the bereavement, 
and an unusual mourning was heard in Bethany, 
while friends more conversant, uttered comfort " con- 
cerning their brother." What, may we inquire, 
was the nature of this comfort 1 

Doubtless they reminded the sisters of the great 
blessedness they had so long enjoyed in the pos- 
session of such a brother, to them so endeared by 
the ardor and constancy of his love, and of whom 
the friends of God could say, " Behold an Israelite 
indeed, in whom there is no guile." As the resur- 
rection was ever a subject of hope to the fathers, 
these holy Jews probably comforted the sisters 
with the assurance of Habakkuk, " We shall not 
die." 

Now was heard the deep-toned sigh gushing from 
the heart of Mary. It was the same heart that had 
" chosen the good part." Piety neither crucifies 
natural affection, nor dries up the fountain of a 
chastened sorrow. She who wept at the feet of 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 51 

Jesus as a Christian penitent, now weeps in his 
absence as a Christian sister. The voice of the Jew 
speaking comfort is again hushed, and we can 
conceive of the ejaculation of Martha, Where now 
is Jesus '? As soon as our brother sickened we sent 
him word, saying, " Lord ! behold, he whom thou 
lovest is sick," but Jesus comes not. 

Again, the sigh is hushed — the tear is stayed, 
and the hearts of the sisters ponder the scenes of 
lovely childhood and mature life; but he is dead, 
and again they weep. 

Let us now turn our attention to the Saviour 
during these incidents of so much moment to these 
his friends. How far above the discernment, even 
of a believing heart, are many of the designs of 
Infinite Wisdom ! 

Who in Bethany would have supposed that the 
Saviour would have delayed in his journey thither, 
upon the reception of such a message as was sent 
him from those he loved 1 

But he tarries until Lazarus dies, and even then 
but tardily approaches the house of mourning. At 
such a moment a word of comfort from the healer 
of the broken heart would have diminished a sorrow 
rendered more poignant by the unaccountable ab- 
sence of Jesus. And yet while they suppose 



52 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

themselves to be almost forgotten, they are actually 
the objects of the most yearning solicitude ; and the 
moment of their despondency is full of glory to the 
Saviour and of mercy to them. Disease is per- 
mitted to corrode " the silver cord " which linked 
" the golden bowl " to a form so lovely to the view 
of the devoted sisters, and upon the manly symmetry 
of which many a youth had fixed an admiring eye. 
Death is permitted to do his direful work, and 
already the abhorrent mildew of the tomb is turning 
its loveliness into decay. 

Adopting the language of an ancient mourner, 
they might have said, " All thy waves have gone 
over me." Yet they are but billows upon whose 
upheaving crest the Son of God shall tread, when 
" mourning shall be turned into joy," for upon the 
first announcement of the sickness of Lazarus, Jesus 
had told his disciples, " This sickness is not unto 
death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of 
God might be glorified thereby." 

During the sickness of their brother, Mary and 
Martha had doubtless frequently hastened to the 
wayside, that they might catch the sound of the 
distant multitude, so often thronging his path, and 
announcing his coming in " Hosannahs to the King 
of Israel, coming in the name of the Lord." But all 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 53 

was silent, and unsolaced by the presence of Christ, 
the brother expired. 

It is a quality of the diamond, that held awhile in 
the light of the sun, and transferred into darkness, 
it still flames, throwing upon the gloom around it 
the lustre which it borrowed from the sun. 

Such is the glory of religion ! It is in the dark- 
ness and humiliation of earthly trials, that the heart 
imbued with faith glows in the light imparted from 
on high ; and it was now that the glory of Christ 
was to be manifested to strengthen these " bruised 
reeds." The resuscitation of our Lord is considered 
the great miracle of Christianity. It was certainly 
fitting that an event so august should be preceded 
by attestations significant of the adequacy of his 
power for its accomplishment. 

Repeatedly had he predicted that " the Son of 
man should be put to death, and on the third day 
rise again." This great event was also referred to 
by him in various allusions to the decay and resus- 
citation of vegetable matter, and in " the sign of the 
prophet Jonah." The mystery, however, was so 
profound, that many thought it a thing incredible 
that " God should raise the dead." Were it true 
that " life is in the Son," that he had power to lay 
down his life " and power to take it up again 1 " If 

5* 



54 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

it were true that the hour had now come, in the 
which they that were in their graves were to " hear 
the voice of the Son of man, and come forth and 
live," then it was assuredly appropriate that the 
Redeemer should attest this truth by including in 
his miracles one that would confirm his teachings 
respecting a doctrine of such paramount impor- 
tance. 

Such was the purpose of Him who shrouded in 
sorrow the home of Bethany, and suffered the king 
of terrors to number with the captives of the char- 
nel house the form of the much loved Lazarus. 

The excitements and solemnities of the funereal 
hour had passed, and Lazarus was reposing in the 
death-cave, where beauty so rapidly turns to ashes. 
The solitude which grief usually prefers, was inter- 
rupted only by the consolations ministered by the 
devout of Israel, and the last yet blessed hope of the 
mourners was that they should see their "brother 
again in the resurrection." 

It was an hour of solemnity in Bethany, and in 
every hall the voice of revelry was hushed ; wonder 
was often expressed, why in the hour of their need 
" that Prophet " had forgotten them, and the inquiry 
was often repeated " Where now is Jesus 1 " 

In the distance, upon the road leading from 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 55 

Bethabara, a group is discerned, and a faithful 
attendant enters the room of mourning, and whis- 
pers to Martha, " the Lord is at hand," and " she 
went out and met him." 

Love for her brother had prompted the desire 
that Jesus should have healed him. Surprise at 
his absence almost turns to murmuring in the 
expression, " Lord, if thou hadst been here my 
brother had not died ; " yet how soon faith hushes 
the tempest, prompting the soul to stay itself upon 
God, as she adds ; " But I know that even now, 
whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it 
thee." Jesus saith unto her, " Thy brother shall rise 
again." Who ! — who hath ever gone to Christ, and 
told their woes, and not returned with balm upon 
their wounds I Scarcely does Martha divulge her 
grief, or give utterance to her faith, than she returns 
with a heart half healed, to her sister, secretly 
saying, " The Master is come and calleth for thee." 

Having spoken as a God in declaring the great 
hope of immortality, " I am the resurrection and 
the life : he that believeth in me shall never die ; " 
he now yields to the gentlest sensibilities of his 
humanity, as Mary, stricken down by the anguish 
of her soul, bows at his feet. " When Jesus, there- 
fore, saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping 



56 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

which came with her, he groaned in spirit, and was 
troubled, and said, " Where have ye laid him I 
They say unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus 
wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved 
him ! " 

"With a stately step the blessed Saviour approach- 
ed toward the cave ; groaning in spirit and with a 
strength surpassing that which enabled Samson to 
unhinge the gates of Gaza, the Son of God pauses 
at the portals of the domain of death. Mortal 
vision perceives him only at the tomb of Lazarus, 
but angels hear his mandate in the world of spirits 
remanding the soul of the beloved Lazarus back 
fi:om the bosom of Sheol. 

The warrior puts on his strength at once. Even 
the intrepid David meets the formidable champion 
of Gath, animated by the recollection of his prowess, 
when he in boyhood slew the lion and the bear. 
Now does the warrior come in triumph from the 
latter place unaccompanied by the evidences of his 
achievements. 

If Christ was to be the destroyer of death — to 
spoil him of his sting, and to silence the boast of 
the hitherto victorious grave — were there to be no 
presages of that victory '? Was faith to rest upon 
the one grand consummation of his own resurrec- 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 57 

tion 1 No ! Though such would have heen enough 
for faith, yet, " that seeing they might beHeve," he 
numbers with his miracles one, indubitably illustra- 
tive of the resurrection. 

If he can reanimate one form in the " valley of 
dry bones," then shall every aceldama of earth 
tremble under his mighty tread, when the " trumpet 
shall sound, and the dead shall awake." " Jesus 
therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the 
grave ; it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it." 

It was an hour of conflict. The sisters knew 
that, being four days dead, the body of Lazarus was 
already wasting under repulsive dissolution, render- 
ing the open sepulchre so offensive to the sight. 
Life to us is the result of travail to a Saviour's soul. 
What anguish was his, when his soul was grappling 
with the troop of death, and when perhaps, the 
cemetery of Bethany was one of the battle-places 
where he " stained his garments," as he exclaimed, 
" The day of vengeance is in mine heart," and " the 
year of my redeemed is come 1 " 

He cried with a loud voice, " Lazarus, come forth ! " 
Why that loud voice ? It was not in accordance 
with the ordinary mode of Christ. A dignity free 
from all vehemence usually marked his doings. But 
now he utters his mandate with " a loud voice." It 



58 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

was done. The time for sighing was over. His 
arm had gotten him the victory, and a voice that 
told his triumph called the fettered dead to life 
again. Life quickened the heart, and light pierced 
the eyeballs of the rising Lazarus. " And he that 
was dead came forth." " Then many of the Jews 
which came to Mary, and had seen the things which 
Jesus did, believed on him." Long over every home 
in Bethany there lingered a light, such as the world 
shall every where behold, when the loveliness of 
immortality shall make every part of Heaven an 
Orient ; and when every Golgotha shall be animated 
by the voice of Him who is the "resurrection and 
the life." 



HEAVEN'S LESSON. 

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY. 

Heaven teacheth thee to mourn, O fi-iend beloved ; 
Thou art its pupil now. The lowest class, 
The first beginners in its school, may learn 
How to rejoice. The sycamore's broad leaf, 
Thrill'd by the breeze, the humblest grass bird's nest, 
Murmur of gladness, and the wondering babe, 
Borne by its nurse out in the open fields, 
Knoweth that lesson. The wild mountain stream 
That throws by fits its gushing music forth. 
The careless sparrow, happy, though the frosts 
Nip his light foot, have leam'd the simpler lore 
How to rejoice. Mild nature teacheth it 
To all her innocent works. 

But God alone 
Instructeth how to mourn. He doth not trust 
This highest lesson to a voice or hand 
Subordinate. Behold ! He cometh forth ! 



60 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

O sweet disciple, bow thyself to learn 
The alphabet of tears. Receive the lore, 
Sharp though it be, to an unanswering breast, 
A will subdued. And may such wisdom spring 
From these rough rudiments, and thou shalt gain 
A class more noble, and, advancing, soar 
Where the sole lesson is a seraph's praise. 

Yea, be a docile scholar, and so rise 

Where mourning hath no place. 



THE RESCUE OF MOSES. 

BY REV. A. D. GILLETTE, A. M. 
/ 

Far away in the interior of Africa is Ethiopia, 
whose valleys and hill-sides are refreshed with plen- 
teous showers of rain, swelling a thousand rivulets 
which course their meandering way; converging, 
until unitedly they form the full current of the Nile, 
Egypt's renowned river. 

This benevolent arrangement of the Creator sends 
vast supplies of water, where showers of rain are 
seldom known to fall; and causes the driest and 
most sandy soil to becone the richest and most fruit- 
ful country in the world. In the kingdom of grace, 
Jehovah is as wise and bountiful as he is in the 
kingdom of nature. When Egypt, the most enlight- 
ened, refined, and powerful nation on the earth, was 
given up to idol worship, God withheld rain from a 
pious, pastoral people in the land of Canaan, and 
sent them in great distress down to Egypt, to buy 



62 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

corn ; for they and their little ones were famishing. 
The haughty Egyptians soon enslaved them, for 
there arose a new king who knew not Joseph, who, 
jealous of the religious and political influence of the 
Israelites, oppressed and sorely taxed them. 

By means of the worship which the Israelites 
observed, their cruel king and task-masters were 
taught the knowledge of the true God, and that he 
was the only proper object of worship. But they 
slighted the offers of his grace, adhered to their 
idolatry, and so judged themselves unworthy of 
eternal life — God pursued a course of providences 
which most effectually chastised them for their sin, 
while it restored to himself, and his worship, a 
nation excelling in piety and true zeal for the honor 
of his glorious name. 

The first and most essential event in the move- 
ment of the Governor of nations, in this great 
transaction, was the " Rescue of Moses,'' as recorded 
in the first ten verses of the second chapter of 
Exodus. 

Human history overlooks the origin and progress 
of the servants of God, as if they were unworthy of 
notice. The world has thought best to hate and 
persecute them in all ages, but never to record their 
virtues. Warriors, statesmen, philosophers and 



THE RESCUE OF MOSES. 63 

poets, are held up to view as deserving immortal 
honors, while the servants of the most high God 
have their names and memorials consigned to ob- 
livi^i. 

God's history proves, however, that while the 
world loves its own, he loves Ms own, and keeps 
them in all their ways. In his annals he notices as 
slightly the earth's mighty names, as man's history 
does the sons of the holy and blessed One. If he 
exhibits the earth's nobles at all, it is in their undis- 
guised ferociousness ; coming up on the whirlpool of 
human ambition, ravenous to devour, divide, and 
bear rule, conspicuous only for their violence and 
rapacity; or their hideous contrast with those of 
whom the world was not worthy. Among this 
honorable class, stands titled by heaven and high in 
true greatness, " Moses the servant of God." In his 
infant life he was Jehovah's peculiar care, and ever 
after his devout worshipper. 

The whole history of the rescue of Moses is as 
follows. 

A man of the house of Levi married a daughter 
of Levi. This man's name was Amram, son of Ko- 
hath, grandson of Levi ; and the bride of his choice, 
was his cousin Jochebed. Their union was one of 
mutual love, and the third pledge Jehovah gave 



64 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

them of their union was an exceeding fair and 
beautiful son. 

The Jews say his form was like an angel's. 

Heathen writers say, his handsome features com- 
mended him to all who saw him, and engaged their 
hearts to him, and made his parents and relatives 
the more anxious to preserve him from falling a 
victim of their cruel tyrant. They hid him three 
months, and when he could no longer be safely con- 
cealed from the officers, whose cruel duty it was to 
destroy all the male offspring of the Israelites, his 
mother took some light reeds which grew on the 
lowlands of Egypt, and made an ark, and rendered 
it impervious to water, by covering it with pitch. 
In this frail vessel she put her lovely babe, and then 
placed it in the still water among the rushes, that 
grow luxuriantly along the river banks. This was 
a mother's act, no doubt assisted and seconded by 
his father if alive. 

"What will not a mother do, rather than yield the 
darling of her heart to cruelty and death 1 Mother, 
is a sacred name ; Jesus spake it and said, " Mother, 
behold thy son ; " and the very use and union by 
him of two such words won to her bosom as her 
own son, the beloved disciple John. 

This young and anxious mother gave the ark of 



THE RESCUE OF MOSES. 65 

her heart's treasures to the waters, doubtless pray- 
ing and trusting, that ere it would be carried away 
by the current, some one would find it, and have 
pity upon the child and save him firom a watery 
grave. This was the best that she could do. Think 
not that the babe was for a moment forgotten, or 
neglected, though it was perilously exposed, by ma- 
ternal hands. A mother's was aided by a sister's 
love. 

Miriam, now about eight years old, loved her 
infant brother, and lingered on the shore to know 
the worst of his fearful history. She watched the 
ark that contained his little form, "to see what 
would be done to him." 

The daughter of the king with her maidens came 
to the river side to bathe at an early hour, as an act 
of ablution and an honor to the deity of the Nile. 
This was a train of lovely young females, whose 
hearts a licentious court had not yet taught to 
throb without feeling for the poor and afflicted. 
Pharaoh's daughter saw the ark among the flags, 
and sent her maid to fetch it. On opening it, she 
beheld the babe, and it wept. That feeble wail 
pierced the young princess's heart, for she had com- 
passion, and said, this is one of the Hebrews' chil- 
dren. 

6* 



66 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

This was evident to her mind from the nature of 
her father's law against the Hebrews, and from their 
complexion, being fairer than that of her own 
swarthy countrymen. 

God's sentinel was now at hand; little Miriam, 
perceiving the kindness shown the rescued babe, 
prompted by her sisterly impulse, drew near the 
heiress of Egypt's proud throne, and artlessly said, 
shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women, that 
she may nurse the child for thee 1 Pharaoh's daugh- 
ter said. Go ; and Miriam called the child's mother, 
and the princess said to her, " Take this child and 
nurse it for me, and I will pay thee wages." The 
mother took her child, rather, shall we not say, 
clasped it to her beating bosom, and lavished upon 
it a mother's love and a mother's nutriment. The 
child grew, and when it needed a nurse no longer, she 
returned him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became 
her son; she adopted him as her heir, and called 
his name Moses, saying, " I drew him out of the 
water." 

Jewish tradition says, Moses was about three 
years old when his mother returned him to the 
court, and that Pharaoh with his queen on his 
right, and his daughter with Moses on the left, and 
the mother before him, allowed Moses playfully to 



THE RESCUE OF MOSES. 67 

take the crown fi:om his monarch head and place it 
on his own, to the great amusement of all the com- 
pany. 

Pharaoh's daughter was supposed to be married 
ere this, but had no children, and was the more 
ready to adopt Moses into the royal family as the 
heir apparent, for unless she had heirs, the sceptre 
would depart into a remote branch of the Pharaohs, 
and be lost to the regnant family forever. Tradition 
also says, that the mother of Moses was also retained 
at court as his governess until he became a man, 
and that she taught him whose son he was, the 
history and wrongs of his nation, and the true wor- 
ship of the Lord God of his fathers. 

We know that his talents, education, principles 
and piety qualified Moses for the throne or any 
station which Providence might assign him among 
men ; for he was learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. 
From such acquirements, which he eagerly pursued 
in the days of his youth, it is no wonder that Moses 
rose to dignity, useftdness and power. He stood 
before Pharaoh as a firiend and chief man at court 
until he was forty years old, and possessed those 
rare accomplishments which afterwards shone so 
conspicuously in his government and disenthral- 



68 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

ment of the people of Israel. Surely we see with 
Milton, 

" One Almighty is ; from whom 
All things proceed, and up to Him return 
If not depraved from good." 

In the rescue of Moses, we learn that God does 
his pleasure, and accomplishes his plans, by leading 
mankind in their free agency to promote his designs 
and bring about his pleasure. 

Hence parents are not to conclude, that while the 
childhood and youth of their offspring may seem all 
to be vanity, that no good can come of them. How 
dark and despairing must have been the mind of the 
mother of Moses, as she left the babe of her bosom, 
where, in all human probability, it would be washed 
out in its floating and fragile ark into the deep 
rushing current of the stream, to be devoured by the 
scaly monsters that revel and riot there ! 

As a pious woman, what admiring gratitude and 
joy must have kindled in her breast, when Divine 
goodness not only rescued her babe from so revolt- 
ing a death, but gave her the maternal luxury of 
being royally employed as nurse and educator to 
her own son all the years of his tutelage. With 
what pleasure she must have entered upon her 



THE RESCUE OF MOSES. 69 

duties ! With what adoring delight she continued to 
discharge them ! 

It is not too much to believe, that she often told 
her noble boy the marvellous story of his exposure 
and rescue, and thereby secured his young heart 
with hers, to the vigorous exercise of heavenly 
devotion, and unshaken faith in Jehovah's promise. 
She doubtless taught her son, what all need more 
confidently to know, that God takes care of infancy, 
and raises up friends to his cause and people, even 
from among those who seem to be their most pow- 
erful enemies. Pharaoh sought the destruction of 
an enslaved people, whom misfortune had made his 
dependent subjects. His daughter rescued and loved 
one of their infants, whom none else, save a little 
girl, seemed to love, and, beyond her expectation, 
saved and eminently qualified him to become his 
nation's deliverer. 

How unsearchable are the judgments of the Lord, 
and his ways are past finding out. Often he raises 
the poor out of the dust, and sets them among and 
above princes, to show that the Most High above 
the heavens does rule. 

Moses being reared at court, was fitted by Divine 
agency to stand before kings and plead that the 
oppressed might go free. By being educated in a 



70 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

learned nation, he was qualified by Providence to 
become the world's first and greatest historian, — 
teacher, — and law-giver to a mighty people. 

The rescue of Moses teaches parents to be thank- 
ful for living when and where no cruel tyrant dare 
deprive them of the lives and care of their offspring. 
At the best, children are so exposed to moral disas- 
ters, that parental tenderness is agitated by many 
sighs of solicitude for their safety and future welfare; 
and we are only at rest when, by culture and prayer, 
we give them to God, knowing that he can keep 
them from death, and qualify them for their stations. 
A wicked and miserable life would be far more 
trying to parental sensibility than an early death. 
"When God gives children, he says to their parents, 
take this child and bring it up for me, and I will 
give thee wages; rear thy little ones in wisdom's 
way ; nurture and admonish them in the Lord, and 
he will guide them by a life of usefulness to a death 
of honor, and a heaven of eternal joy. What though 
you cannot do all you would in your heart for your 
children, submit to your condition, and do the best 
you can. Jehovah awakened compassion in a hea- 
then's heart for young Moses, and thereby provided 
for his education and fitness for life's stern and 
solemn duties. Christians certainly will be kind to 



THE RESCUE OF MOSES. 71 

children left or neglected by their parents, or who 
by poverty are deprived of early mental culture and 
moral care. Whoever observes providences, will see 
that children early afflicted, and falling upon the 
compassion and care of others, are oftener celebrated 
for piety, distinguished for usefulness, and rendered 
eminently worthy, than those whom no cloud over- 
shadows and no early hardships inure to vigor, 
hope, or energetic enterprises. How often do young 
people, while careless of religion, study and learn 
that knowledge which genuine conversion conse- 
crates afterwards to the high and holy service of 
preaching Christ's gospel, and extending the power 
of his love ! God says, " I will bring the blind by 
a way that they know not, I will lead them in 
paths that they have not known, I will make 
darkness light before them, and crooked things 
straight. These things will I do unto them, and 
not forsake them." " I will be their God, and they 
shall be my people in truth and righteousness." 

What Moses did for God and the Israel of God, 
proves his pious appreciation of the Divine goodness 
which rescued him from an early death. Impelled 
by allegiance to his preserver and love to his people, 
he refused and cast from him, as useless baubles, the 
pageantry of a voluptuous court, and the crown of 



12 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Egypt, then the richest and most powerful nation on 
the earth. Yes, he esteemed the reproach of Christ 
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. He join- 
ed his own countrymen, despised and enslaved as they 
were, delivered them from bondage, and led them into 
liberty ; established among them that splendid system 
of religion, which was emblematical of another and 
more glorious one which Christ came to give. 

When they were hungry he fed them with manna, 
teaching them to live by faith on the bread of God, 
through Jesus Christ, who came down from heaven. 
To supply their thirst, he brought water out of the 
rock ; they drank of it, and that rock was Christ. 
When they sinned and deserved national death, he 
pleaded rather to be blotted out of God's book, than 
that these sheep in the wilderness should perish. 
When bitten by serpents, swollen and dying, Moses 
lifted up among the despairing a brazen serpent, 
and cried. Look and live — showing forth man's 
final cure of sin by Jesus Christ and him crucified. 
When the wasting pestilence, whose very vapor was 
death, melted its thousands and its tens of thou- 
sands, he clothed Aaron in his sacred vestments, put 
a censer of holy incense in his hand, and sent him 
forth to stand between the living and the dead, and 
so the plague was stayed. All before where Aaron 



THE RESCUE OF MOSES. 73 

stood were consumed — all behind were preserved ; 
beautifully symbolizing the Lamb of Calvary, who 
met the burning wrath of Jehovah, and turned it 
aside from a guilty world. 

Moses led the people forty years in the wil- 
derness, until their journey was at an end; he 
loved and watched them vdth more than parental 
fondness, and carried them as it were in his arms, 
as a good shepherd carries the lambs and feeble 
ones of his flock ; and when the hour of his depar- 
ture drew nigh, he assembled them around Mount 
Pisgah, fi:om whose towering summit he clearly 
saw the goodly Canaan afar off. Here he sung 
his swan song, and poured out his whole heart, 
foretelling their long eventful history, over which 
and their sins he wept. He then revealed that 
brighter scene of extraordinary glory and prosperity, 
when they should be gathered and restored to the 
land of their fathers, and become a joy and a praise 
in all the earth. A magnificent t}^e of the gathered 
ftdlness of all nations before the throne of God at 
last, who are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. 
Moses resigned his charge to Joshua, and went up 
the Mountain of Nebo, and in obedience to the com- 
mand of God there died, and the Lord buried him ; 

and his sepulchre no man knoweth unto this day. 
7 



EUTH AND NAOMI. 



BY MRS. RILEY. 



Leave thee, my mother 1 think' st we can part 1 
Doth not thy look belie thy lips' command 1 
Will not the sunshine of one faithful heart 
Cheer thy sad journey to thy native land? 
A son-less widow'd wanderer though you be, 
Thou art not childless while I am with thee. 

Thy slightest wish was wont in happier days, 
In our glad home to serve as a behest ; 
Thy wish, if not thy word, she still obeys. 
When thy child seeks with thee a peaceful rest. 
Where Israel's faith with Israel's name is found, 
And holy worship makes it sacred ground. 

Think'st thou the faith taught by thy lips I loved 
Hath faded with the voice that gave it birth 1 
That vision of a life to come, which proved 
His hope in death, is dimmed by thoughts of earth ] 



RUTH AND NAOMI. 75 

No, through, the night of sorrow, that bright star, 
Hath pointed to a home of peace afar. 

Together we rejoiced in brighter years ; 
Sharing the self-same home — the self- same lot. 
Together we have mingled bitter tears : 
To leave me now, my mother, ask me not ! 
Where'er thou wanderest, thither will I roam. 
Thy God shall be my God — thy home my home. 



THE TEEACHERY OF JUDAS. 

BY F, H. DUFFEE, ESQ. 

The Advent of " the meek and lowly Jesus " was 
foreshadowed by the prophet Isaiah in language at 
once eloquent, pathetic, and sublime ! He was, 
says the inspired writer, to be " stricken, smitten of 
God, and afflicted." The history of his mission and 
crucifixion as narrated by the Evangelists in their 
simple and unpretending manner, cannot fail to 
awaken the tenderest sympathies of the human 
heart. The life of the Saviour was replete vrith the 
severest trials and sufferings. 

" He was despised and rejected of men, a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief" Even among 
those whom he had chosen as his disciples and 
Mends, who were the constant witnesses of the 
purity of life, the celestial doctrines he had taught, 
and the numerous miracles he had performed, there 
was one who forsook all that he had, to follow the 
despised Jesus of Nazareth, exposing himself year 



THE TREACHERY OF JUDAS. 77 

after year to persecution for his sake, preaching his 
gospel unsuspected by his fellow disciples, and not 
disowned by his Lord ; and yet we are warranted to 
say, it had been better for that man if he had never 
been born. The perfidy and treachery of Judas 
admits of no extenuation. He, in common with 
the other disciples, had been the inseparable com- 
panion of the afflicted Jesus, in labor and in rest, 
intrusted with his most secret thoughts and the 
subject of his most fervent prayers. 

How many admirable examples of the most heroic 
virtues did that perfidious apostle behold in the 
conduct of Jesus Christ ! How many words of 
eternal life did he hear from his sacred mouth ! All 
these did not extinguish in the unhappy Judas, that 
spirit of avarice which induced him to betray his 
Master. Avarice was the ruling passion of this 
traitorous adherent, and avarice at last consigned 
him to a land of darkness. At the feast at Bethany 
we read that " Mary took a pound of ointment of 
spikenard, which was very costly, and anointed 
the feet of Jesus, and wiped them with her hair, 
and the house was filled with the odor of the oint- 
ment." The anger and cupidity of Judas were 
aroused at what he supposed the waste of that 
costly ointment, inducing him to give utterance to 

7# 



78 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

his indignation, and to demand of Jesus — " Why 
was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence 
and given to the poor 1 

But Jesus at once rebuked him with this memora- 
ble remark ; " Let her alone ; against the day of my 
burial hath she kept this ; for the poor always ye 
have with you, but me ye have not always." 

This calm rebuke must have enraged and morti- 
fied the avaricious traitor, and hastened him to the 
treacherous compact subsequently made with the 
Jews to deliver Jesus into their hands. With the 
faithlessness of Judas our Saviour himself was 
deeply impressed. He did not, however, abandon 
his perfidious disciple, but used the most powerful 
graces in order to withdraw him from so dark a 
purpose. 

At the last supper he washed his feet, exhorting 
him to humility and repentance ; but observing that 
nothing softened his hard and impenitent heart, 
" he was troubled in spirit, and said. Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." 

This was the first intimation that Jesus gave his 
disciples of his knowledge that he would be be- 
trayed by one of them, and even then his allusions 
to the traitor were incidental and ambiguously 
disclosed. 



THE TREACHERY OF JUDAS. 79 

When one whom we deeply reverence charges 
us with an evil design, we suspect ourselves of it, 
rather than him of a wanton accusation. This drew 
from their faithful hearts the fearful exclamation, 
" Lord, is it I ! " "Is it IT' 

His treatment of Judas was still characterized 
with the same kindness — no taunting, no reproach, 
— but the utmost tenderness and generosity. 

Upon this occasion was the Divinity of our 
Saviour manifested in the most ample manner, for 
not only with words of admonition, but by the 
humiliating act of washing his disciples' feet, to 
which even Peter at first objected until informed 
by his Divine Master that it was necessary for his 
salvation. 

Jesus also remarked, " Ye are not all clean," and 
again, " I speak not of you all — I know whom I 
I have chosen, — but that the Scripture may be 
fulfilled, he that eateth bread with me hath lifted 
up his heel against me." 

And as if to assure them still more clearly and 
forcibly of the knowledge of his betrayal, he fur- 
ther remarks : " Now I tell you before it come, that 
when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am 
he ; " and " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to 
my Father, and he shall give me more than twelve 



80 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

legions of angels — but how then shall the Scrip- 
tures be fulfilled, that thus it must be 1 " 

Here then is abundant evidence that Jesus knew 
all from the beginning, and that this was ordained 
to " come to pass," but we recognise at the same 
time the free moral agency of Judas in the fearful 
denunciation : " The Son of man goeth as it is 
written of him, but wo unto that man by whom 
the Son of man is betrayed : — it had been good for 
that man if he had not been born." 

The disciples, filled with anxious solicitude, look- 
ed one on another when Jesus intimated that one of 
them should betray him, doubting of whom he 
spoke, so careful was he in the exposure of Judas, 
that he did not even name the perfidious disciple, 
but adopted a sign for their information, as it is 
eloquently related in the following passage : " Now 
there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his 
disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore 
beckoned to him that he should ask, who it should 
be of whom he spoke. He then lying on Jesus' 
breast, saith unto him. Lord, who is it 1 

" Jesus answered, — He it is to whom I shall 
give a sop, when I have dipped it ; and when he 
had dipped the sop he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the 
son of Simon, and after the sop, Satan entered into 



THE TREACHERY OF JUDAS. 81 

him ; then said Jesus unto him, — That thou doest, 
do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for 
what intent he spake* this unto him, for some 
thought because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had 
said unto him. Buy those things that we have need 
of against the feast, or that he should give something 
to the poor. He then having received the sop, went 
immediately out, and it was night." 

This narrative of the sacred writer, which we 
give entire, is both artless and graphic. It depicts, 
in an admirable manner, the method which the 
Saviour had employed to dismiss the erring disciple 
from his presence, and to protect him at the same 
time from the indignation of the others, who would 
have probably slain him on the spot, in order to 
have saved their Divine Master. The treacherous 
follower was thus enabled to escape, and when he 
had gone out, Jesus being freed of him, exclaimed, 
" Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is 
glorified in him," and also the new commandment : 
" That ye love one another ; as I have loved you, 
that ye also love one another." 

The act which Jesus directed his fallen disciple to 
perform " quickly," no doubt, was his deliverance 
into the hands of his enemies, for the Saviour knew 
that he had conspired with the Jews to betray him, 



82 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

and therefore urged him to do it " quickly," that the 
Scriptures might be fulfilled. Jesus knowing that 
his hour was nigh at hand, the presentiment of 
approaching agony weighing heavily upon his spirit, 
he repaired with his disciples to the garden of 
Gethsemane, there to pour out his soul, and yield 
himself up to the burden of his woes. 

While he left the greatest number of his disciples 
sitting, he selected the three most dear to him, and 
taking them apart from the rest, he gives relief to 
his soul by confidingly saying to them, " My soul 
is exceeding sorrowful even unto death." " Tarry 
and watch with me." Stepping aside and prostrating 
himself on the earth, he spent an hour in agonizing 
prayer. During this interval his wearied disciples 
slept, and Jesus coming to them and found them 
sleeping, saith unto Peter, in a tone of mournful 
reproach, — " What ! could ye not watch with me 
one hour 1 " He leaveth them again, and when he 
returned a second time found them sleeping, and 
said to them, " Sleep on noAV and take your rest, for 
the hour is come when the Son of man shall be 
betrayed into the hands of sinners." Scarcely had 
the Saviour uttered these words, when they beheld a 
great multitude with swords and staves, and among 
them Judas, one of the twelve. Now was treachery 



THE TREACHERY OF JUDAS. 83 

at its height! Judas approached the Saviour and 
said, Hail, Master! and kissed him. When Jesus 
mildly asked, " Friend, what art thou come for 1 " 
" Dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss 1 " 
then turning to the rabble that were surrounding 
him, inquired of them whom they sought; they 
replied, " Jesus of Nazareth." He said, " I am he." 
" If ye seek me only, let these go their way," 
meaning his disciples. They then seized the be- 
trayed Jesus, bound him and led him to the house 
of the High Priest, where a council was assembled, 
who sought false witnesses against Jesus to put him 
to death. 

But let us turn to Judas ! When therefore the 
condemnation of Jesus was certain, for Judas 
had listened to the proceedings with concern, he 
became convinced of his guilt, and thus openly 
confessed it, with anguish so acute, and " eyes run- 
ning down with rivers of tears," that his very 
existence became a burden ; but even this seeming 
sincere and heartfelt remorse fell far short of real 
contrition, and left him to perish. As soon as he 
was awakened to a sense of his transgression, the 
prophetic declaration of his Master concerning his 
latter end, rushed into his mind, and his soul was 
dismayed ; but could he have been assured that this 



84 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

vengeance was averted, he would probably have 
enjoyed the reward of his perfidy without remorse, 
and after shedding a tear or two over the grave of 
his Lord, would have thought of his iniquity no 
more. The language of the sacred historian appears 
to warrant the supposition, that when he consented 
to betray his Master, he had persuaded himself 
that this act of treachery would not prove fatal to 
him. He thought, perhaps, that he would, as on 
former occasions, deliver himself from the hands of 
his enemies by an exertion of his miraculous power ; 
and thus while his crime served to enrich himself, it 
would really promote the interest of his Lord by 
giving him a signal and public opportunity of 
manifesting his greatness. 

When, therefore, he saw that he was really con- 
demned ; when he saw him, instead of passing 
through the surrounding multitude, or striking down 
by the word of his mouth the guards and soldiers 
around him, quietly submitting to be led to prison 
and to judgment; when he saw his fiiend, his 
guide, his benefactor, going " as a lamb to the 
slaughter," a multitude of distracting thoughts 
crowded into his mind, his obdurate heart relented, 
and his former unconcern gave way to a sorrow as 
sincere and pungent, as ever wrung a guilty breast. 



THE TREACHERY OF JUDAS. 85 

The money fi-om which he had expected such 
gratification, became now a source of remorse and 
misery. Regarding it as the price of his Master's 
blood and the wages of his own unrighteousness, he 
could not look upon it without horror, he could not 
keep it \vithout torment. Impatient to put it far 
away firom him, he carried it back to those from 
whom he had received it ; and when they refused to 
accept it, he cast it down with abhorrence in the 
temple, and " went out and hanged himself." 

Reader ! in this narrative we are especially called 
upon to guard against self-deception. We are called 
upon to look at Judas becoming his own accuser, 
vindicating his Master, and condemning himself; 
and while we are ready to commiserate his suffer- 
ings, and almost admiring his boldness, we are 
reminded that at that moment he w^as as much a 
son of perdition, as when with a treacherous kiss 
he betrayed his Lord. No confession could appear 
more sincere, no sorrow more genuine, no fear more 
agitating. And yet he perished; perished not be- 
cause his sin was too great for the blood of Christ 
to cleanse, and the mercy of God to pardon it, but 
because he wanted those things, without which the 
most severe compunctions, and Hveliest feehngs, and 
the most splendid gifts are nothing worth. And 



86 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

what are those things 1 A heartfelt abhorrence of 
sin, a conviction of the desperate wickedness of the 
soTil, and a spirit of grace and supplication with 
God for his pardoning mercy. And he who is 
destitute of these, is very far from the kingdom of 
Heaven. 



I i I, ;>. 

tmm- 




THE YOUTHFUL SAVIOUR IN THE 

t 

TEMPLE. 

BY REV. SAMUEL HANSON COX, D. D., BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

Some things, or rather many, connected with 
religion and occurring often to " the mind of de- 
sultory man," are rarely and scantily, or not at 
all, regarded in the inspired oracles. The written 
word has one grand end throughout; this it suh- 
serves, and this alone, in all its glorious disclosures ; 
to this, directly or indirectly, as essential or as inci- 
dental, tends every thing in the total system of 
revelation. That word is eloquent in its silence, 
instructive in its omissions, and perfect even in its 
brevities : and that end is not to provide for world- 
liness, or amusement, or curiosity, or sectarianism, 
or any other partial conceit or imagination of men ; 
but, it is — the glory of God in the salvation of his 
church universal, comprising all them that love our 
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. 

Who has not desiderated, in the biography of 
Christ, something more, extensively and minutely 



88 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

and graphically more, of his private ways described, 
and especially of his youthful history 1 But no ! 
Infinite Wisdom erred not in what it withheld, more 
than in Avhat it gave; casting down imaginations^ 
and every high thing that exalteth itself against the 
hnoivledge of God, and hringing into captivity every 
thought to the obedience of Christ. 

It is enough for us to correspond with heaven, 
more than submissive to what pleases God. This, 
however, implies that we occupy where he has made 
room for us, and learn devoutly whatever he has 
condescended to teach. It implies a high and a 
wise appreciation of his word, and prompts to study 
with holy assiduity his revealed will ; congratulated 
on the boon that from a child each of us has known 
the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make us wise 
to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. 

In the second chapter of the gospel according 
to Luke, the last thirteen verses, that is, from the 
thirty-ninth to the fifty-second inclusive, we have a 
select and finished picture of some interesting aspects 
of the boyhood of our blessed Saviour, which may 
speak for itself, in the translation of the learned 
Dr. Campbell, formerly of Aberdeen.* 

* Died 1796, aged 77. 



THE YOUTHFUL SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE. 89 

" After they had performed every thing required 
by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, 
to their own city Nazareth. And the child grew 
and acquired strength of mind, being filled with 
wisdom and adorned with a divine gracefulness. 

" Now the parents of Jesus went yearly to Jeru- 
salem at the feast of the Passover. And when he 
was twelve years old, they having gone thither, 
according to the usage of the festival, and remained 
the customary time, being on their return, the child 
Jesus staid behind in Jerusalem, and neither Joseph 
nor his mother knew it. They supposing him to be 
in the company, went a day's journey, and then 
sought him among their relations and acquaintance ; 
but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem, 
seeking him. And after three days, they found him 
in the temple, sitting among the doctors, both hear- 
ing them, and asking them questions. And all who 
heard him were astonished ; but they who saw him 
were amazed at his understanding and answers. 
And his mother said to him, ' Son, why hast thou 
treated us thus*? Behold, thy father and I have 
sought thee with sorrow.' He answered, ' Why did 
ye seek me 1 Knew ye not that I must be at my 
Father's r But they did not comprehend his an- 
swer. 

8* 



90 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

"And he returned with them to Nazareth, and 
was subject unto them. And his mother treasured 
up all these things in her memory. And Jesus 
advanced in wisdom and stature, and in power with 
God and man." 

From these sacred words, we add some remarks, 
mainly suggestive, in reference to their import and 
use. 

1. Here is no warrant for the popular and com- 
mon mistake, sometimes assumed by wise men and 
expressed in the words — " Christ disputing with 
the Doctors." No! Such a posture would ill be- 
come such a youth, in such circumstances. It were 
a grand oiFence against propriety and good manners. 
It was impossible to the perfection of his character. 
He would learn — not teach, dictate, dispute, with 
such men of dignity, learning, and official eminence. 
What ! a boy of twelve — but the text is innocent 
of so grand an anomaly ; " both hearing them, and 
asking them questions." This was conduct proper, 
exemplary, and well becoming his years and the 
education he had received. Tradition and the 
canvass have both err^d, but not the written word 
of God. 

2. His questions on seeing his parents were 
sprightly and agreeable. Why seek me all over the 



THE YOUTHFUL SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE. 91 

city ? Why not come at first to the temple, which 
is my Father's house in Jerusalem ? AVhere could 
you expect to find so young a person in this great 
metropolis, but at his Father's 1 Am I not where I 
ought to be 1 

The letter of the original is ambiguous. Camp- 
bell gives the true sense. Our version is obscure 
and vague. Besides, to be " about his Father's 
business," probably imports what did not at all 
become him at that age, namely, his official work as 
Messiah. Not till he " began to be about thirty 
years of age," was he competent to this. That was 
the lawful age of sacerdotal investiture. He would 
not, as a private person, invade or usurp an official 
station; much less, as a child, assume the preroga- 
tives of maturity. Again, he pleasantly censures 
them for not knowing that he must be at his Father's ; 
which could have had no propriety or pomt on the 
other supposition, They could not, and did not 
know, that he " must be about his Father's busi- 
ness ; " but they might naturally have judged that 
he could be, if in the city at all, certainly " at his 
Father's." However, like many modern persons, 
the sentiment was too deep for them. " They did 
not comprehend his answer." 

3. We have reason to think that our Sa\iour 



92 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

was, as a youth, a person of rare and exquisite heauti/. 
He was " adorned with a divine gracefulness." His 
countenance, form, and movements, were extraor- 
dinary. A radiation of elegance and glory arrested 
all observers, and charmed the wisest philosophers. 
Moses was a beautiful boy, divinely fair, and a 
signal type of his great superior. To this add the 
manners of the incomparable child; as easy, becom- 
ing, intelligent, modest, and adapted to please, 
blending dignity vdth nature, without the least 
affectation, or self-vaunting, or unkindness, with 
nothing out of place, or out of time, or out of order, 
in all he said, or did, or seemed ; and what a perfect 
moral picture have we here ! Let children and 
critics study it, and try to resemble what they cannot 
fail to admire. 

4. We judge that, as a youth, and even when 
grown, he was exceedingly popular with all classes of 
men. The last sentence of the text, indeed, asserts 
this. But to this there was a terminus. When he 
began to preach, to be a reprover, to act officially in 
his messianic character, then indeed all was changed ! 
" The most fine gold had become dim." Popularity 
was exchanged for persecution. His very house 
became hostile. " For neither did his brethren 
believe on him. Then Jesus said unto them, the 



THE YOUTHFUL SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE. 93 

world cannot hate you ; but me it hateth, because I 
testify of it that the works thereof are evil." The 
world love natural amiableness and good manners 
in others, when these do not specially interfere with 
their own faults and sins, or wound their pride by 
the contrast. But as soon as reproving occurs, 
their love is exchanged for hatred, their admiration 
for antipathy. " A scorner loveth not one that 
reproveth him ; neither will he go unto the wise." 
^ 5. His piety was eminently filial and obedient. " He 
returned " with his parents, " and was subject unto 
them." The spirit of the fifth commandment, that is, 
" the first " of the second table, was perfectly exem- 
plified in his whole deportment. Oh ! how rare, 
how admirable, how excellent, this phase of youthful 
piety ! Happy that nation, that coming age, whose 
citizens " learn first to show piety at home, and to 
requite their parents; for that is good and acceptable 
before God." Let not the alarming want of it 
become the ruin of our favored nation, in this land 
of our preference and our boast. Precious children, 
the hope of your country and the joy of your 
parents, will you in the end be their grief, their 
dishonor, their lamentation % Or, will you meditate 
the perfect example of the youthful Redeemer, and 
aim to copy it in your own deportment I 'V\niat a 



94 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

standard ! the only perfect one that ever was found 
on earth. The example of Christ through all his 
years, his vicissitudes of trial, and his prodigies of 
suffering, is the perfect embodiment in action, and 
the complete counterpart in practical illustration, of 
the holy and glorious law of God. It is a living 
and intelligible commentary on the decalogue, the 
ten commandments ; that code of permanency and 
perfection as a rule of conduct, written on tables 
of stone by the finger of the living God ; his own 
inspiration, his own legislation, and his own auto- 
graphy. 

6. His piety was symmetrical and ennohling^ cul- 
turing the intelligence as well as the affections. He 
loved knowledge, truth, wisdom. He exercised and 
strengthened his young powers in these richest and 
best of acquisitions. No tame or low pursuits, 
nothing negligent, or indolent, or careless, appears 
in him. He loved to improve his mind, to decorate 
it with the pearls of God. How ornamental, how 
magnanimous, how glorious ! What an example for 
universal imitation ! He loved divine instruction. 
He was docile, and receptive and luminous, not 
only, but apt, and aspiring, and devoted, in the 
ways of wisdom. 

7. His example, and the common practice of the 



THE YOUTHFUL SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE. 95 

Jewish church, seem to indicate the period^ at which 
certainly we ought to expect piety and self-consecra- 
tion to God, in our beloved children. When he 
was " twelve years old " he went to Jerusalem and 
partook of the Passover. And why may not our 
children profess the religion of our blessed Lord 
and Saviour at the same age % For this were they 
bom and redeemed, and devoted to God in baptism. 
For this have they pious and affectionate parents, 
whose prayers to God for them, whose practical 
anxieties respecting them, whose attentions and 
regards and self-sacrifices on their account, and 
especially the love incomparable among creatures of 
THEIR MOTHER, all Centre properly here, that they 
may be the genuine worshippers of God, the children 
of his love, the heirs of his salvation. 

The Passover under the Mosaic, was virtually the 
same thing with the Eucharist or the Lord's supper 
under the Christian dispensation. That looked 
forward with expectation, and prefigured the expi- 
ation of sin on the cross ; this takes the retrospect 
of the past, and commemorates the death of our 
Saviour ; both hope in the same salvation and unite 
in the same Redeemer. Only our light is greater, 
fuller, brighter. Our obligations are proportionate. 
And if our Christian youth are rightly trained in 



96 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

God, and educated for heaven, may we not expect, by 
his blessing on the efforts of parental faithfulness, 
that, at "twelve years old," at farthest, they will 
ordinarily become the disciples of the Lord Jesus 
Christ '? If not, let them be pious much earlier. 
The elements of the gospel are capable of great 
simplification. Mothers peculiarly are to learn 
this glory-secret, and give it a blessed exemplifi- 
cation in the early piety of all their precious 
ofi'spring. They ought to aim them every one at 
heaven, as the lighted lustres of immortality, as the 
brilliant stars of God, as the conscious suns of 
eternity, glowing forever in the radiation of perfect 
light, as decorations glorious and appropriate for 
the firmament of the new creation. " Believe in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy 
house. They are beloved for the fathers' sakes. If 
the root be holy, so are the branches. And I will 
establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy 
seed after thee, in their generations, for an ever- 
lasting covenant, to be a God to thee and to thy 
seed after thee. For the promise is unto you and to 
your children, and to all that are afar off, even as 
many as the Lord our God shall call. And they 
brought young children to him, that he should 
touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that 



THE YOUTHFUL SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE. 97 

brought them : but when Jesus saw it, he was much 
displeased, and said unto them. Suffer the little 
children to come imto me, and forbid them not ; for 
of such is the kingdom of God. And he took 
them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and 
blessed them." 

That twelve years of age is quite mature for the 
seeds of piety to germinate in the juvenile bosom, 
is obvious. Their acquisitions of the rudiments of 
human science at that age, show it. Why not study 
divine science too ? A modern poet tells us with 
lamentation, his regret to have postponed an ac- 
quaintance with our greatest poet and his greatest 
work, till fourteen circles of the sun had measured 
his ruling ignorance miserably so far advanced. 

" Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms ; 
New to my taste his Paradise surpassed 
The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue 
To speak its excellence. I danced for joy. 
I marvelled much, that, at so ripe an age 
As twice seven years, his beauties had then first 
Engaged my wonder ; and admiring still, 
And still admiring, with regret supposed 
The joy half lost, because not sooner found." 

8. "We hazard one more reflection, the importance 
of the youthful period of life. Much it governs every 



98 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

other period, and even extends its consequences into 
eternity. Thus often " the boy is father to the 
man." The indications of character, then, are un- 
sophisticated, and they often predict and influence 
the destiny. To omit the darker class of portents, 
how often have the presages of greatness, and even 
of goodness, been given graphically in youth, if not 
in infancy ! How young was Moses, was Samson, 
was Samuel, was John the Baptist, was Timothy, 
was Doddridge, and were thousands of others, when 
appeared the harbingers and the signals of their 
future eminence. Of this, how bold an instance, 
how sublime a demonstration, is the Saviour himself. 
Never died such a man, never lived such a boy. 
How desirable to see the signs of the divine favor 
and the divine purpose in their early wisdom, in 
their daily actions, in their common preferences, in 
their words and sentiments, evinced. How wise to 
use the means of grace with them preventively ; to 
foreclose the avenues of the mind against the insin- 
uations and the devices of falsehood and of crime. 
These signs are often not solitary, or of one class 
only. They are not confined to the features, the form, 
the manners, the talents, the achievements, the aspi- 
rations, any one of these merely ; but are identified 
more with the contour, the assemblage, the entire 



THE YOUTHFUL SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE. 99 

picturesque of character. They make an impression. 
All who know them feel that something extraor- 
dinary is there. Thus Paul to his " own son in the 
faith : This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, 
according to the prophecies which went before on 
thee, that thou by them mightest war a good 
warfare." Oh ! that these proofs and pledges of 
eminence in all good, might be multiplied and 
augmented in the persons of our beloved youth, 
a thousand fold ! 

9. Finally, we are here taught to study the charac- 
ter of this august youth ; whose name is " called 
Wonderfal, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father 
of Eternity, the Prince of Peace." * He indeed is the 
grand object of religious thought, confidence, adora- 
tion, and praise. " He that hath seen me, hath 
seen the Father." Our estimate of Him shall arbi- 
trate our own destiny. To love Him; to discern 
HIS excellency and his glory; to read him as the 
theme of the total Bible ; to realize him " precious " 
to our souls ; to know and serve and follow him ; to 
appreciate him, as he is, absolutely and relatively, in 
himself and towards ourselves ; to be his illumined 
friends and correspondents on the earth ; to become 
HIS clients, depending on him alone as our Advocate 

* Barnes' translation. 



100 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

with the Father^ and confiding in him as our Great 
High Priest in the heavens ; this indeed is wisdom, 
peace, affluence, salvation. This is what man wants ; 
that after which every man by nature ignorantly 
thirsts, pursues, and hopes somehow to attain it, and 
that which the Christian alone attains by faith in 
his name ! A simple method, but a more sublime 
one. It is the method of God. It looks like the 
nondescript, the unimaginable opposite, of all hu- 
man contrivance or anticipation. Here is the germ 
of the grand and surpassing wonder — 

The Youthful Saviour in the Temple. 

If his very juvenility is so rich and attractive, 
what must it be to know him perfectly in the eternal 
maturity of his developments ! If we ever arrive at 
heaven — if we fail not in that divine and ineffable 
prospect of good — we shall see him youthful no 
more, but venerable as worthy, the Lamb that was 
slain, the light and the glory of the Temple of 
Temples in the Jerusalem of God forever. 



JACOB m THE HOUSE OF LABAN. 

BY JOSEPH L. CHESTER, ESQ. 

Thus have I been twenty years in thy house ; I served thee fourteen 
years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle ; and thou 
hast changed my wages ten times. — Genesis xxxi. 41. 

Oh, father of a princely line ! We see 
Thee here, a slave in willing shackles bound. 
But humanized, and to our level brought. 
Thou, from whose loins sprang kings, and lastly Him 
Whose birth gave life to myriads lost in sin, 
Art present to us as the ardent youth. 
With passions and affections like our own. 

We see thee toiling for those seven long years — 
At once the price and token of thy love — 
For Eachel, unto whom thy heart doth cleave. 

Perchance those years were full of bitterness : 

Thou hadst the promise^ but thou wert a slave ; 

And yet, methinks, thy bonds were silken ones. 

For thou wert but the prisoner of love. 

^ « # « # ^ 

9* 



102 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

How wert thou when thy consciousness revealed 

The face of Leah 1 Did thy spirits sink 

And heart grow better from that sad deceit 1 

We know not ; but thy character appears 

More bright by after conduct. Seven years more 

Thou servedst for the E-achel of thy love, 

And took her to thy faithful breast at last. 
****** 

What lesson learn we from thy constancy 1 
Is 't not that unto her who won our heart 
In early youth our manhood still should cling 1 
Is't not that love, well placed and weU deserved. 
Is in itself a boon to be desired, 
And sought for, even with toil and servitude 1 




i'ainlerL 'by E.Prexilis. 



l^^^-'hy .H.S.Sadd NT 



t^ ^M^^^^ ^^^ 



(2>^^My^^d/J^/^ 



'■s^d^ny "Tn^t^yi^^ 



a-n^i 







"CALL UPON ME IN THE DAY OF 
TROUBLE." 

BY JAMES REES, ESQ. 

Poverty, like some darkening shade of night, 

Weighs on the heart, and with a withering power 

Dries up the spring of Hope ! It is the cause 

Of many crimes, which, moving onward, crush 

The finer feelings of the heart, and spread 

Their desolation round. The eye looks out 

On Earth, from its dark prison, misty seems 

What all before was bright ; the flow'rets fade 

And wither at the gaze ; the lily droops, 

And o'er the parterre goes a fell simoom 

With devastating power. No thing of life 

Survives. The Sun looks dark, and nightly gloom 

Pervades all earth ; and yet no gloom is there ! 

The eye is dimmed by woe ; its feeble glare 

Eeflects the d}ing embers of the heart. 

***** * 



104 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Thus man droops, his very nature throws 
O'er smiUng earth a darkening shade of self, 
Which Truth dispels, but in the heart of Sin 
No truth, alas ! is found. There grim despair 
Sits enthron'd, and, mocking all sacred things. 
Erects a standard Fate itself upholds — 
That it may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven. 

Behold yon man ! — 
A man of grief, he bends 
His head upon his trembling hands, and feels 
That he is doom'd ! His sins are up in arms, 
And, hound-like, hunt the better part to death ! 
The storms and tempests of the world he dreads. 
The lightning's flash he shuns. This man hath sinn'd. 
His heart 's oppress'd ; he dared to curse, not call 
On God. The lightning's glare was Heaven's wrath. 
The thunder's roar to him, its awful curse ! — 
He dares not pray, and yet an angel's voice 
Cries out, " Turn ye from your evil ways," — 
He sinks in grief, for on his soul there lies 
A load of guilt, long years of conscious crime. 
Years in which his youth and manhood grew. All 
Wasted. The wine-cup and the wanton's lip, 
The dice-box, and the wassail long and deep 
Employed the sunny hours of life — till light 
And all went out. Not that alone, for see, — 



CALL UPON ME IN THE DAY OF TROUBLE. 105 

Beside him sits an angel form, whose hand 

Now points the Avretched man to Hope. Her eyes 

Are moisten'd, tears of sorrow and of joy 

Now trickle down her cheek, — joy of the heart. 

For in his faltering voice, and bending looks 

He sees the efficacy of prayer ! — 

Prayer intuitive — a gentle dove that lies 

Nestled amid the foliage of the heart, 

And only strives for freedom, when bright Hope 

Sheds pearly sunshine round its prison bars ! 

She had watch'd each struggle, and in grief — 
Prayed for him the world had long shut out. 

That gentle dove awoke, when woman's voice 
Broke on the ruin and wreck of earthly hope ; 
It ilutter'd there, where life had long seem'd dead. 
And wing'd its flight, a pleader for its home ! — 

That man of sin 
Feels the soft touch of virtue's hand, and weeps ; 
But why thus hide his eyes ? Check not thy tears ; 
"Weep boldly, for they are showers of Hope. 

Her voice — an angel voice — bade him awake 
From dreams of night, and on the ambient air 
See seraphims, wing'd messengers of joy, 
Whose voices musical the world ; how sweet 
Those blessed words — " Behold the Lamb of God, 
AVhich taketh away the sin of the world." 



106 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Hark ! a strain more plaintive far than .^olian 
Sound, or soft murmurs from Arcadian groves, 
Comes o'er his heart, that heart of heavy grief; 
Nearer it comes — how soft, how heavenly ! Hark ! 
What holy words now syllable the strain — 
" Awake, thou man of woes, awake and pray, 
For truly the Lord hath said as written, 
' Call upon me in the day of trouble ; ' 
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning. 
And the clouds which oppress thee fade away, 
As the mists of night from the mountain tops." 

Thy wife hath invoked the spirit of prayer, 
For prayer never forsakes the heart that throbs 
With life ! All that is God's, lives on forever. 



MARY MAGDALENE. 

BY W. CULLEN BRYANT. 

Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted ! 
The crowd are pointing at the thing forlorn, 

In wonder and in scorn ! 
Thou weepest days of innocence departed ; 
Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to move 

The Lord to pity and love. 

The greatest of thy follies forgiven, 

Even for the least of all the tears that shine 

On that pale cheek of thine. 
Thou didst kneel down, to Him who came from 

heaven, 
Evil and ignorant ; and thou shalt rise 

Holy, and pure, and vdse. 

It is not much that to the fragrant blossom 
The ragged briar should change ; the bitter fir 
Distil Arabian myrrh ; 



108 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Nor that, upon the wintry desert's bosom, 
The harvest should rise plenteous, and the swain 
Bear home the abundant grain. 

But come and see the bleak and barren mountains, 
Thick to their tops with roses ; come and see 

Leaves on the dry dead tree : 
The perished plant, set out by living fountains, 
Grows fruitful, and its beauteous branches rise. 

Forever, towards the skies. 



THE REPENTANCE OF PETEE. 



BY THE EDITOR. 



In the following narration, St. Luke presents to 
us a sad instance of human fi:ailty, and a most 
affecting proof of divine mercy. In the fall and 
restoration of Peter we have both warning and 
encouragement ; while the one bids the most con- 
fident fear, the other holds out the most cheering 
hope to the desponding. When Balaam trans- 
gressed, an angel was sent fi:om heaven to reprove 
him, and no less than a prophet was commissioned 
to warn David of his guilt, and call him to repent- 
ance ; storms and winds are also employed to remind 
Jonah that he had sinned ; but the simple voice of 
a bird is made to penetrate into the inmost soul of 
the apostle, and arouse the conscience that was 
slumbering there. " The Lord turned and looked 
upon Peter ; " and he remembered the words of his 
Master, and went out and wept. 

10 



110 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

But what was the look which the compassionate 
Saviour directed toward his fallen apostle 1 It was 
not only a look of pity, but of painful and anxious 
concern. This denial and falsehood was uttered at 
a moment when Jesus required the most tender 
sympathy from those who professed to call them- 
selves his friends. Who can presume to describe 
the sorrow which at that moment was afflicting 
him 1 But he well knew that, although the guilt of 
the fallen apostle was great, his repentance was of 
that nature to insure forgiveness. Peter was brought 
to repentance, but there was an anguish of spirit 
accompanying his restoration, which the evangelist 
does not, and could not describe. He tells us, 
however, how it was manifested, — " Peter went out 
and wept bitterly." It was not that sorrow, which 
has its origin in fear, and leaves the heart as it finds 
it : it was that sorrow which springs fi-om love, and 
fills the heart with the tenderest emotions, while it 
humbles it. When the profane Esau was suffering 
under the consequences of his folly, he lifted up his 
voice and wept. Peter not only " wept," but he 
"wept bitterly." That compassionate look of his 
Lord forced memory to do its work, and to bring to 
his mind, in shapes too horrible to describe, the 
broken vows, the slighted warnings, and the compli- 



THE REPENTANCE OF PETER. Ill 

cated crimes he had committed. " He remembered 
the word of the Lord," and when he thought thereon 
he wept. But what effects did repentance produce 
in the conduct of the apostle after such humiliation 1 
It produced in Peter an increasing love for his 
Master ; for scarcely had the Saviour burst the bars 
of the tomb, when an angel was commissioned to 
announce the glad tidings to Peter, who was assured 
by such a message that, notwithstanding his base 
disowning of him, he still considered him as his 
apostle and fi-iend. 

Look at him, running with eager haste to the 
deserted sepulchre ! The beloved John paused when 
he reached the sacred casket, and found that the 
precious jewel had been removed ; but the impetuous 
Peter waited not to examine and calculate, but 
entered at once into the conquered grave, to behold 
the memorials of his Master's conquest. Mark his 
conduct at the sea of Tiberias ! " It is the Lord," 
said John, as he beheld the Saviour standing on the 
shore ; and the sound had no sooner reached his 
ears, than the ardent Peter sprang into the sea, and 
hastened to the shore. And what was the scene 
that followed 1 Behold a fallen but a forgiven sinner 
prostrate at his Master's feet, receiving the sweet 
outpourings of his grace ! But a short time previous. 



112 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

we remember him in the hall of Ananias, a cow- 
ardly, trembling apostate, with the tempter exulting 
in the weakness and shame of his victim, for that 
was his hour of darkness. What was his character 
after God had humbled him? He was the noble 
and undaunted apostle, asserting boldly in the streets 
of Jerusalem the divinity of Him, who, but a short 
time before, he had scorned and insulted. 

And in the midst of all this invincible boldness, 
he never forgot the sin which had disgraced him, or 
to mingle the tears of penitence with the songs of 
praise. This was indeed a triumph for the gospel. 
Here our Heavenly Father glorified his grace, and 
out of evil produced the greatest good. The lesson 
which this display of mercy addresses to the peni- 
tent, is equally obvious. No one can fail to perceive 
that it was designed to encourage. God himself has 
pronounced the sorrow of the poor in spirit blessed, 
and he has not blessed it in vain. His people taste 
its sweetness. Their happiest hours are those which 
are spent in meditating on the love of Christ ; and 
while in the enjoyment of such reflections, they envy 
not the inhabitants of heaven. In the mysterious 
riches of his goodness the Lord sometimes vouch- 
safes to his saints, in such seasons as these, peculiar 
consolations. 



THE REPENTANCE OF PETER. 113 

He recalls their soul fi:om the contemplation of 
its own depravity, and tells it to look again with the 
eye of faith on the cross of his Son. He leads them 
to their Saviour ; enables them to cast on him the 
burden of their sin ; and leaves them rejoicing in his 
salvation. He does not indeed hastily chase away 
their sorrows ; they are often left to feel much of 
the bitterness of their sin, and to mourn over its 
shame; but, in the end, the clouds and darkness 
which transgression has spread over their souls are 
generally dispersed, the day-star arises in their 
hearts, and the night of their mourning is ended. 

In the narrative before us, our Saviour appears to 
have thought more of Peter's sorrow than of his 
curses ; more of his tears than of his oaths. Thus, 
too, did God deal with his servant Job. We read 
the history of his life, and we see it stained with 
much that is evil. And yet we do not find God 
condemning this man. He calls him a perfect and 
an upright man ; and by his apostle St. James directs 
us to remember the patience of Job, while he says 
not a word of his impatience, his murmurings, and 
complaints. Yet we are not to suppose that God 
is an indifferent spectator of our transgressions, or 
altogether blind to them. Such a conclusion would 
militate against some of the plainest declarations of 

10* 



114 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

his word ; it would impeach, the perfection of his 
divine nature, his unalterable omniscience, and his 
infinite holiness. 

The Almighty has ever visited the transgressions 
of his children vdth the rod, and their iniquity with 
stripes. It has been so in every age, and so it was 
in the instance before us. Year after year the fallen 
David had his sin ever before him, and watered his 
couch with tears. 

So with the repentant Peter ; wherever the gospel 
is preached throughout the world, there also is his 
falsehood and treachery made knovm and published. 
The sin is forgiven, but the shame of it will remain 
forever. 

There are indeed some seasons in the Christian 
pilgrimage, in which he finds it difficult to believe 
that God has not forsaken him. Affliction heaped 
upon affliction presses him down ; the consolations 
which he once enjoyed seem to be withdrawn, and 
all around him is gloom. The Christian is not 
allowed to remain in this perplexity long ; he prays 
that the "bitter cup may be removed" from him, 
and soon he feels the arm of Jehovah placed beneath 
him ; he hears his voice saying to his fainting soul, 
" Fear not, I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I 
am thy God." 



THE REPENTANCE OF PETER. 115 

Reader, may you and I be able to say with the 
contrite Peter, 

" Thy prayer hath saved me, thine embrace 
Upheld my soul by sovereign grace ; 
Thy arm restored me when I fell ; 
I love thee. Lord, thou know'st it well." 



JERUSALEM. 

BY REV. S. H. CALHOUIf, MISSIONARY TO SYRIA. 

I VISITED Jerusalem for the first time in 1839. 
We had prolonged our stay at Bethlehem, six miles 
south, waiting for the re-opening of the gates of 
the Holy City, which had been for some time closed 
by reason of the plague. Desirous, however, of 
being as near as possible to the ancient Zion, we 
determined to remove our encampment to the Mount 
of Olives. Leaving Bethlehem, therefore, a little 
before sunset, (it was a pleasant evening in March,) 
and sending forward our tents and luggage on 
camels, we pursued our way on foot, and approached 
Jerusalem just at nightfall. As we descended into 
the valley of the Son of Hinnom, which passes along 
the southern border of the city, and wended our way 
through it to its junction with the Cedron, which 
comes down from the north along the eastern sides, 
and thence turning up this latter valley, and cross- 
ing an old bridge near the ancient Gethsemane, 






y 




lii'llll 



JERUSALEM. 117 

ascended the Mount of Olives to near its summit, — 
all seemed like familiar ground. 

Though it was in the dusk of evening, one hardly 
felt the need of a guide. I could easily imagine that 
I had been there before. In my boyish days Canaan 
had been to me as a fairy land. I used to think, as 
I read the Bible, that though Jerusalem, and Bethle- 
hem, and Nazareth, and the Mount of Olives, might 
once have been upon earth, surely they could not 
now be found — if one would search for them, he 
must go to the Mount Zion above. As a result of the 
study of after years, however, I had come to form, as 
I now found, tolerably accurate ideas of the general 
features of the scenery, especially around Jerusalem. 
The Mount of Olives, and the neighboring valleys, 
were in most respects as I expected to find them. 

And it is this fact which, in my apprehension, 
gives the chief interest to a visit in Palestine. 

All is in such perfect correspondence with the 
details of Scripture. One knows, as he wanders 
about Jordan, and Samaria, and Galilee, that he is 
in the home of the Bible — that the sacred writers 
were familiar with these mountains, and these valleys, 
and the names of these villages. He finds every 
where the most abundant testimony to their accu- 
racy, even in their minute geographical statements ; 



118 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

and this in circumstances which preclude the possi- 
bihty of deception. Monkish traditions have no 
influence in this matter. Superstition finds here no 
appropriate aliment wherewith to nourish her delu- 
sions. It is not a question about the place where 
the cross stood, or the locality of the manger, or the 
sepulchre. On these points the Bible gives us no 
precise information. 

It is the simple testimony of the country itself, in 
its general features, and in the perpetuity of names 
often comparatively unimportant, to the scrupulous 
exactness of the sacred historians. 

I find the following observations on the same 
subject in my notes of a second visit to Palestine in 
1843. I was going up from the ancient Joppa, and 
had reached by nightfall the base of the mountains 
and hills, among which Jerusalem is situated. We 
had yet twenty miles before us, but the moon, which 
was a little past the full, gave us abundant light. 

" Those were delightful but solemn hours which 
we passed that night, as we pursued our way among 
the mountains of the tribe of Benjamin, with the 
same moon over our heads which had so often 
enlightened, in the same regions, the path of the 
' Man of Sorrows.' I have little anxiety about the 
precise spot of ground where the cross stood, or the 



JERUSALEM. 119 

locality of the sepulchre, or the house of Mary and 
Martha in Bethany. These and such like details, 
instead of strengthening faith, (for more or less 
uncertainty must inevitably rest upon them,) only 
foster superstition. But I do love to wander over 
the hills around Jerusalem, to ascend OHvet, to visit 
Bethlehem and Nazareth. 

" I find my faith invigorated by such opportunities ; 
for I know assuredly, and know from the corres- 
pondence of what I see around me vdth what I read 
in the Scriptures, that I am gazing on the same 
scenery which was famihar to our blessed Lord in 
' the days of his flesh.' " 

But to return. Jerusalem is well represented in 
the plate before this article. The view is taken from 
the Mount of Offence. On the right rises up the 
Mount of OHves. Between you and Jerusalem is 
the valley of Cedron, and to the left is the valley of 
Hinnom, which is a continuation of the Gihon valley 
on the west of the city. Mount Zion swells up from 
the Hinnom, and that part of it which is mthout 
the walls is under cultivation. " Zion shall be 
ploughed as a field." 

The tomb of David, as it is supposed to be, is still 
shown. Between it and the city wall is the Ameri- 
can Protestant grave-yard; in the back ground is 



120 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

seen the highest summit of the highest mountains in 
Palestine, called Neby Samwil, from the tradition 
that the prophet Samuel was buried there. Most of 
the heights around Jerusalem are rocky and bare, 
and yet there are, at least to my eye, some beautiful 
landscapes. 

During one of my visits to Jerusalem, I was 
spending an hour with a friend just outside the 
eastern wall, a little south of St. Stephen's gate. 
While there I improved the opportunity to note on 
paper some account of the objects around me, from 
which I subjoin an extract. 

" Behind me, within the wall is Mount Moriah, 
where the Temple of Solomon once stood, and where 
now stands the Mosque of Omar. A little to the 
right was the eastern entrance to the outer court. 
Near me, and to a considerable distance north and 
south, are Mohammedan graves. Immediately in 
fr^ont, and at a steep descent, is the valley of Jehosh- 
aphat or Cedron, running southward. Across the 
Cedron to the east rises the Mount of Olives, perhaps 
two hundred feet higher than the spot where I am 
now standing. I see three summits. 

" The middle one is the highest, and almost di- 
rectly opposite me, as is also the bridge which spans 
the Cedron. From the bridge I see a road running 



JERUSALEM. 121 

up between the northern and middle summits of 
Olivet, leading to Bethany. 

" Another road from the same bridge I trace as it 
winds along, gradually rising around the southern 
summit, leading the traveller to the same interesting 
spot. Small fields of well headed barley clothe the 
upper parts of the Mount, and give it a rich appear- 
ance. Olive trees are scattered over it in every 
direction. 

" I see also the Garden of Gethsemane, (there is 
but one Gethsemane, and these eyes now behold it,) 
not confined, as superstition would teach us, to a 
small inclosure, but occupying, as I suppose, the 
lower part of the mountain for a considerable dis- 
tance along the Cedron. 

" The lower half of the southern part of OKvet I 
see covered with Jewish gravestones. 

" Hither these despised descendants of Abraham 
love to come, and find a burial-place in the valley of 
Jehoshaphat. A little to the south of the southern 
summit the mountain falls away pretty rapidly, and 
then bending somewhat to the west rises a Kttle, and 
thus forms another summit, supposed to be the 
Mount of Offence, where Solomon erected altars for 
the worship of pagan deities. 

" Between these two last named summits I see, 
11 



122 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

far in the distance to the southeast, the high moun- 
tains of Moab across the Dead Sea." 

Jerusalem is, and ever will be, an intensely inter- 
esting spot to the Christian. It is a privilege to be 
permitted to visit it. Such a visit, if rightly im- 
proved, will tend to confirm one's faith and promote 
his sanctification. But let no one think that, if 
there, he would of course find the worship of God 
more delightful, or the discharge of duty more easy. 
He will find, as the writer can testify from his own 
experience, as many distractions in prayer, and as 
many (not to say more) temptations to its neglect, 
on Olivet or on Zion, as in his own retirement at 
home. " It is neither on this mountain, nor yet at 
Jerusalem." 

As already suggested, the principal benefit to be 
derived from a visit to the Holy Land, is in the 
testimony one finds to the accuracy and truthfulness 
of the Scripture writers ; a testimony which the 
sternest disbeliever cannot gainsay, for it is associ- 
ated with that which is addressed to the eye and 
the ear, and upon which the Divine Hand has 
enstamped perpetuity. 



PAUL EEASONING WITH FELIX. 

BY L. H. SIGOURNEY. 

When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. — Acts xxiv. 25. 

Alone he sat and wept. That very night 
The ambassador of God, with earnest zeal 
Of eloquence, had warn'd him to repent ; 
And, like the Roman at Drusilla's side, 
Hearmg the truth he trembled. Conscience wrought, 
Yet sin allured. The struggle shook him sore. 
The dim lamp warn'd, — the hour of midnight toll'd ; 
Prayer sought for entrance, but the heart had closed 
Its diamond valve. He threw him on his couch. 
And bade the Spirit of his God depart. — 
But there was war within him, and he sighed, 
" Depart not utterly, thou Blessed One ! 
Beturn when youth is past, and make my soul 
For ever thine." 



124 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

With kindling brow, he trod 
The haunts of pleasure, while the viol's voice. 
And beauty's smile, his joyous pulses woke. 
To love he knelt, while on his brow she hung 
Her freshest myrtle wreath. For gold he sought. 
And winged wealth indulged him, till the world 
Pronounced him happy. Manhood's vigorous prime 
Swelled to its climax, and his busy days 
And restless nights swept like a tide away. 
Care struck deep around him, and each shoot 
Still striking earthward, like the Indian tree 
Shut out with woven shades the eye of Heaven, 
When lo ! a message from the Crucified, 
" Look unto me and live." Pausing, he spake 
Of weariness, and haste, and want of time. 
And duty to his children, and besought 
A longer space to do the work of Heaven. — 
God spake again, when age had shed its snows 
On his wan temples, and the palsied hand 
Shrank from gold-gathermg. But the rigid chain 
Of habit bound him, and he still implored 
A more convenient season. 

See, my step 
Is firm and free ; my unquench'd eye delights 
To view this pleasant world ; and life with me 
May last for many years. In the calm hour 



PAUL REASONING WITH FELIX. 125 

Of lingering sickness, I can better fit 
For vast eternity. 

Disease approach'd 
And reason fled. The maniac strove with, death, 
And grappled like a fiend, with shrieks and cries. 
Till darkness smote his eyeballs, and thick ice 
Closed in upon his heart-strings. The poor clay 
Lay vanquish'd and distorted. But the soul, — 
The soul, whose promised season never came, 
To hearken to its Master's call, had gone 
To weigh his sufferance, with its own abuse, 
And abide the audit. 



11* 



BLIND BAETIMEUS. 

BY REV, S. B. HOWE, D. D. 

It is remarkable that we do not read of the 
miracle of opening the eyes of the blind having 
been performed in a single instance, till it was 
wrought by Christ. Indeed, it was foretold as a 
peculiarity that should mark the Messiah when he 
came, that he should open the eyes of the blind. 
The various diseases of the body, are striking em- 
blems of the diseases of the mind ; and the miracles 
which Christ wrought in curing bodily diseases, are 
emblems of still greater cures which he effects in 
the soul. As he opened the bhnd eye of the body, 
so he gives light to the mind darkened by ignorance 
and error. As he cleansed the leper from the loath- 
someness of his bodily disease, so he cleanses the 
soul from the pollution of sin ; and it is with refer- 
ence to this fact that we shall consider the history of 
the blind beggar, as illustrating our spiritual con- 



BLIND BARTIMEUS. 127 

dition as sinners, and the grace and power of Christ 
in restoring us to spiritual life and health. 

We read of this beggar, that he was blind ; and 
this forcibly reminds us that, as the effect of the 
fall, our " understandings are darkened," as well as 
our hearts alienated from God. In mere temporal 
and secular matters we may be quick-sighted and 
sagacious ; it is only in relation to God and our 
spiritual and eternal interests that we are blind. 

This truth we know is offensive to the pride of 
man ; for he boasts of his reason, and trusts to it 
as his guide. But what has reason, when left with- 
out the light of revelation, ever done for himl 
What is the condition of the most enlightened and 
civilized heathen nations now; and what was the 
condition — we mean the religious condition — of 
the most learned and polished heathen nations of 
ancient times'? 

The Egyptians, though famed for their learning, 
are more famed for the grossness of their idolatry. 

The deities of the Greeks and Romans were im- 
pure and vile ; and at Athens itself, the metropolis 
of science and refinement, an altar was built to the 
UNKNOWN God. 

To boast of the sufficiency of Eeason, to be the 
guide of man in religion, is to contradict his whole 



128 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

history since the fall, and to close our eyes against 
innumerable and most humiliating facts. The de- 
claration of the inspired apostle, that " the world by 
wisdom knew not God," is supported by evidence, 
against which only the most blinded and prejudiced 
reason can object. But we need not appeal to the 
heathen world ; we have all around us sad proofs of 
the blindness of men in relation to their spiritual 
interests. They are blind as to the true character 
of God ; his spotless holiness, his inflexible justice, 
his infinite majesty, his almighty power, and their 
constant dependence upon him, and accountability 
to him. 

They are blind as to their own character and con- 
dition ; the corruption of their natures, the spiritu- 
ality of the divine law, the immense value of their 
souls, and the danger of perishing through sin. 
They are blind as to the grace and glory of the 
Lord Jesus, as the Eedeemer of men, and of the 
preciousness of the salvation which he bestows. 
They apprehend not the reality of these things, nor 
their own deep interest in them ; nor are any suita- 
ble emotions awakened in their bosoms, nor are 
their tempers and their conduct influenced by them. 
The person whose history is before us, was not only 
blind, but was also a beggar. He was without the 



BLIND BARTIMEUS. 129 

means of subsistence, and because of his blindness 
unable to acquire them. He was thus wholly de- 
pendent on the charity of others. 

In this respect, too, he affords a lively representa- 
tion of the spiritual condition of man. 

By our apostasy from God, we have become poor 
indeed. We have lost the likeness of God, the 
knowledge, the righteousness of the true holiness in 
which we were created, and which were the glory of 
our nature. 

We have lost the friendship and blessing of our 
Creator, and the interest which we had in him as 
our Father and portion. 

We have lost all right to heaven, or to a partici- 
pation in its glories and bliss. 

These were the rich inheritance of man while he 
retained his innocence ; but all were lost by sin. — 
Nor is this all. We have incurred a fearful debt, 
and have nothing of our own to pay it. " Our 
iniquities are more than the hairs of our head ; " we 
are wholly unable to make satisfaction for them. 
Our best virtues are so imperfect, and mixed with 
sin, that even they need to be repented of, and can 
never commend us to our just and holy Judge. 

Multitudes indeed trust to them, and boast of 



130 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

their goodness, even while they are living in sinful 
indulgences, and choosing the world for their por- 
tion. They flatter themselves, that they are rich, 
and increased in goods, and have need of nothing. 
But this is as if a beggar should boast of his rags, 
and choose his crust, before the richest feast. 

The poverty of this beggar, seems to have been of 
the most abject kind ; "for he sat by the wayside 
begging." Probably he had no fixed home, nor 
relatives, who were able or willing to support him, 
but was thrown an outcast on the cold charities of 
strangers. 

And what home, or what friends to welcome him 
to rest, and to supply his wants, has the impenitent 
sinner, who rejects the Saviour 1 

This life is but a dream, a passing shadow. We 
have here no fixed abiding place, but are carried 
away as with a flood ; death is constantly breaking 
down the bodies of men, and driving their spirits 
out of " the earthly house of their tabernacle ; " and 
vdthout the blessing of God, and the grace of our 
Eedeemer, what peaceful home above can they ex- 
pect to find in the other world? Even a proud 
emperor of Rome, felt sad at the prospect, and ex- 
pressed his sadness in the following plaintive lines : 



BLIND BARTIMEUS. 131 

"Animula vagula, blandula 
Hospes, comesque corporis, 
Quae nunc abilis in loca 
Pallidula, rigida, nudula 
Nee, ut soles, dabis jocos ? " 

" O wandering, charming, poor little spirit ! the 
guest and companion of my body ; into what pale, 
cold, naked places wilt thou now go away from all 
thy sports and jests *? " Sin has robbed the heart of 
man of the hope of a glorious immortality ; has 
invested the grave with gloom and darkness, and 
given to death its sting and its terrors. But blessed 
be God! Jesus of Nazareth is even now passing 
by, and from him we may obtain peace and life. 
The restoration of this blind beggar to sight stri- 
kingly represents the manner in which Christ 
restores to spiritual Hght and life, the souls of men 
blinded and depraved by sin. As soon as this poor 
beggar was told " that Jesus of Nazareth was pass- 
ing by," he cried, saying, " Jesus, thou Son of David, 
have mercy on me." Those who were with him 
rebuked him that he should hold his peace ; the 
meanness of his condition excited their contempt, 
and the sufferings of a blind beggar awakened no 
compassion; but their rebukes did not silence or 



132 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

discourage him : " He cried so much the more. Thou 
Son of David have mercy on me." 

How surprising is it that this bhnd beggar should 
have known the true character of Christ, when the 
Jewish priests and scribes and rulers knew him not. 
He called him " the Son of David," that is, the pro- 
mised Messiah and King of Israel, in whom were 
fulfilled the various prophecies of the Old Testa- 
ment. He knew that no mere man could heal his 
disease ; that it is only " the Lord who openeth the 
eyes of the blind ; " but he doubtless knew the mir- 
acles which Jesus had wrought, as well as the 
prophecies which foretold his coming, and, influ- 
enced by the Holy Spirit, he appHed to him for 
sight. 

Thus should the sinner, who feels his blindness 
and helplessness, cry to Christ for mercy. 

He may meet with rebuke and opposition : his 
conscience may terrify him by bringing to remem- 
brance his past sins ; Satan may tempt him to be- 
lieve that God will not have mercy upon him, and 
that his iniquities are too many and too aggravated 
to be pardoned ; but let him not be discouraged. 
Though no other eye pities, and no other arm can 
save him ; though his foes and his fears may be 
many and strong ; there yet is One who is mighty to 



BLIND BARTIMEUS. 133 

save, who is full of mercy and grace ; and he there- 
fore should not cease to pray, but should more 
earnestly cry, " Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy 
on me." "We perceive that Jesus did not attend at 
once to the cry of the beggar, but suffered him to 
cry and cry again. He did this only to try the sin- 
cerity of his desires and the strength of his faith. 
Thus it is now. He often delays for a season to 
answer the prayers of penitent and troubled sinners ; 
but he does not therefore disregard them; he de- 
signs only to try and to prove them. He spake a 
parable to this end, that men ought always to pray, 
and not to faint. The history of the poor widow, 
who by her importunity overcame the unjust judge ; 
and of the Syrophenician woman, who succeeded by 
her repeated entreaties, are recorded for our instruc- 
tion and encouragement. Though at first Jesus 
seemed not to hear the cries of this poor beggar, his 
repeated cries reached his ear, and he commanded 
him to be brought unto him ; and when he was come 
near he asked him, saying, "What wilt thou that I 
should do unto theer' And he said, "Lord, that I 
may receive my sight." And Jesus said unto him, 
" Receive thy sight ! thy faith hath saved thee." 

What a change was instantaneously wrought in 
his condition. A moment before, he was immersed 

13 



134 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

in deeper than midnight darkness ; in an instant, at 
the word of Jesus, light breaks in upon his blinded 
eyeballs, and he sees the creation of God spread 
forth in all its loveliness before him. 

He gazes with rapture on the splendor of the 
sun and the glories of the earth ; and, above all, 
he gazes with astonishment and gratitude on Him 
who had restored his sight. 

He is now a new man, and enters on a new life. 
He no more depends on the charity of others to 
feed, and clothe, and lead him. 

He walks erect and with a firm and steady step, 
conscious that he is now able to provide for himself, 
and to grant aid to others. 

They are happy, who, like this blind beggar, have 
access to Jesus, and can spread their prayers before 
him. They have a season of mercy, rich with bless- 
ings. To the humble penitent, saddened and self 
abased by the remembrance of his sins, and crying 
to him for mercy, Jesus says, " What wilt thou that 
I should do unto thee 1 " He hears their prayers ; 
he pardons their sins, and by his spirit he enlightens 
and renews their minds. Then a new world, as it 
were, opens and rises up before them ; " God, who 
commanded the light to shine out of darkness," 
shines in their hearts, " to give the light of the 



BLIND BARTIMEUS. 135 

knowledge of tlie glory of God, in the face of Jesus 
Christ." They now see in Christ unutterable grace 
and glory, and contemplate with wonder the union 
of divine justice and mercy, holiness and goodness, 
in the work of redemption. 

New feelings of gratitude and love are awakened 
vdthin them, while they rejoice in God as their 
Father and portion in Christ. 

Our blessed Redeemer, when he healed the blind 
beggar, said to him, " Receive thy sight, thy faith 
hath saved thee." Faith is the trust of the heart in 
Christ for the reception of spiritual blessings. Un- 
belief is the rejection of him, as though he were 
unworthy of our confidence, or unable to supply 
our wants, and arises from a false and sinful confi- 
dence in ourselves. 

Faith arises from an humbling conviction of our 
own sinfulness and inability to save ourselves, 
accompanied with the firm conviction that Jesus 
Christ is the Son of God, God manifest in the 
flesh, mighty to save, and in the entire, cordial 
reliance of the heart upon him. This faith is 
necessary for our obtaining the blessings w^hich 
he only can bestow. The great and the noble, 
as well as the poor and the mean, the learned 
and the wise, as well as the unlettered, must come 



136 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

and receive salvation as his free gift, or miserably 
perish in their sins. There is every thing in his 
character and history to invite and encourage our 
confidence in him. Though he is now the Lord 
of glory and exalted to be Head over all, he 
is the same compassionate and condescending Sa- 
viour, as when he dwelt as Jesus of Nazareth in 
the land of Judea. His power, his love, his mercy, 
and his grace have no bounds. 

As he came into the world to save sinners, so 
now he is " exalted as a Prince and a Saviour, to 
give repentance to Israel and remission of sins." 

Let none despair. Let none imagine that their 
sins are too many, and their unworthiness too great 
for them to obtain pardon and salvation. Jesus 
is " able to save to the uttermost all them who 
come to God through him." The wretched, the 
guilty, the poor, and the dying, have ever found a 
fiiend and a Saviour in him. He is even now 
passing by us in the preaching of his word, the 
administration of his ordinances, the dispensations 
of his providence, and the strivings of his spirit. 

By all these he calls us to himself He waits 
that we may come and present to him our petition ; 
and if with true faith we receive him, he will bestow 
eternal life upon us. 



ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 



BY LYDIA JANE PIERSON. 



'TwAS burning summer o'er the wilderness. 
And on the lofty mountains that look up, 
With heads uncovered, reverently to heaven. 

The shrubs were fainting in the noon-day heat. 
And the tired song-birds droop'd their airy wmgs 
In silence mid the still and wilted leaves ; 
The herbage lay all languid on the rocks. 
The sweet breath of the aromatic vines. 
And rich young flowers of glorious forms and hues. 
That grew in ravine, cleft, or narrow dell. 
Lay on the still air round the drooping cups. 
In overpowering fragrance, while a hush 
Of sickly languor brooded over all 
The rough and thirsty landscape. 

Lo ! there comes 
An aged wanderer feom the wilderness. 
With faltering step he lean'd upon his staiF, 

12* 



138 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

While toiling up the stern and rocky side 
Of the majestic Horeb. His white locks 
Were wet with perspiration, and his breast 
Heav'd quick and painfully, while his worn feet 
Flinch'd from the heated rocks ; yet on he climb'd, 
TiU the faint flutter of the breeze's wing 
Shook balm upon his parch'd and quivering lip, 
And bathed his burning eyeballs. Gratefully 
He rais'd his face tow'rd heaven, and the sweet 

breeze 
Lifted his damp white locks, and kiss'd his brow. 
Wooing him sweetly to repose and peace. 
He sat him down, that hungry, tired old man. 
Whose tongue was swollen with thirst, and thank'd 

his God 
For that delicious visitant, 
Which, lifting now the tufts of vines that grew 
Upon the rock, beneath whose shade he sat, 
Show'd ripe red berries clustering 'mongst the leaves. 

His joy gush'd forth in praises as he fed 
Upon the cooling fruit, which quench'd his thirst. 
And satisfied his hunger. Seeking then 
A resting-place, he found a rugged cave 
Extending deep into the mountain's breast ; 
He enter'd it, and laid him down to sleep 
Upon its mossy floor. 



ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 139 

And who was he, 
That silver hair'd lone wanderer 1 He was one 
Whose spuit was so pure, that the great God 
Held high communion with him. Yet the world 
Hated and hunted him from place to place. 
Dogging his steps, and thirsting for his life ; 
And he had prayed for death. Yet now he lay 
Calmly in that lone cavern. Holy peace 
Was nestling in his bosom, and his brow 
Was placid as the moonlit summer sky; 
Sleep lay upon his eyelids, as the dew 
Lies upon the closed corolla of the flowers, 
In cool, refreshing beauty. No kind friend 
Was there to watch his slumber, yet the God, 
Who fills all space, was with his servant there 
In that vast solitude. With august voice 
He woke him from his sleep, bade him go forth 
And stand upon the rock before the Lord. 

He rose, went forth, and stood on the sheer rock, 
Waiting for God's appearing. 

Hark ! From far 
A fearful, rushing sound. The heavens grow dark — 
Is God approaching 1 Lo ! a strong, fierce wind 



140 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Shriek'd terribly among the caves and clefts 
And splinter'd rocks. 'T is past, and all is still — 
God was not in the wind. 

Now wakes a sound — 
A deep, low moaning in the mountain's breast. 
Which trembles fearfully, as if she felt 
The dreadful presence. Now her bosom heaves 
With strange convulsions, and she bellows forth 
Her agony, while the eternal rock, 
On which the servant of Jehovah stood, 
Shook like a leaf upon the aspen bough. 
And mighty rocks fell down, and caverns yawn'd, 
And the whole mountain totter'd. 

It is past — 
God was not in the earthquake. 

Lo ! there comes 
A more appalling wonder. Surely now 
The Terrible is near. Surging along. 
Above the wilderness, a flood of fire 
Is sweeping toward the mountain. In its way 
The atmosphere bursts into whirls of flame. 
With frightful detonations. 'Tis too much 



ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 141 

For mortal man to meet. With pallid fear 

He shrunk within his cave. The fire rush'd past 

And vanish'd — but God was not in the fire, 

A fine breeze follow'd the fierce element ; 
Heaven was serene, and on Mount Horeb lay 
The downy wing of silence. On that calm 
There came a still small voice. * * * 
'Tis God ! The servant feels his Sovereign nigh, 
He wraps his face mthin his mantle's folds, 
And at the entrance of that hallow'd cave, 
With head bow'd down, and meek, attentive soul, 
Converses vnth Jehovah. 



JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES. 



BY REV. W. H. FURNESS. 



The intercourse of Jesus with, his disciples illus- 
trates his personal qualities, the tenderness and 
strength of his affection, in a manner true to 
moral beauty, far beyond my power to describe it. 
His communion with that little circle is a perfect 
model of faithful love. 

He dealt not in eloquent protestations of regard. 
We observe no sentimentality, or ostentations con- 
descension, none of the cant of firiendship ; only, 
as his life drew to its close, his affection for his 
ffiends breaks forth with peculiar tenderness. His 
peace he gave them, but not as the world giveth. 

Pie compared himself and his chosen disciples 
to a vine and its branches. This similitude we 
are accustomed to characterize as bold and oriental. 
But as we dwell upon its meaning, the boldness 
of the metaphor vanishes, and we perceive that 
it does but imperfectly express what Jesus designed 



JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES. 143 

to say. When you look upon a vine or a tree, 
pushing forth its thousand branches, adorned with 
foilage and laden with fruit, you see only an in- 
adequate representation of that unity of spirit which 
may subsist between human beings, and which did 
subsist between Jesus and his disciples. What 
life did they draw from him 1 Before they became 
acquainted with him, they were obscure individuals, 
laboring every day at the humblest employments, 
confined to a narrow sphere. 

The world knew nothing of them, and they, 
nothing of the world, dwellers upon the shores of 
an inland sea. But there came One from Nazareth, 
into whose countenance as they looked, to whose 
voice as they listened, their spirits began to burn 
within them. They left their boats, and followed 
him. 

At every step of the way, their hearts were knit 
more and more closely to his, and the lining truth 
which fed his existence, and made him the godlike 
being that he was, was gradually infused into the 
bosoms of these poor fishermen. 

He captivated their imaginations. He entered 
into their very hearts, and was enthroned there. 
The thought of him became the soul of their life ; 
he dwelt in them. As he thus abode in them, so 



144 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITER ATUHE. 

they abode in liim ; he received them into himself. 
By the force of love, more powerful than the em- 
bracmg arms of an angel, he took them to his 
bosom, and there they were cherished among the 
most sacred objects of his being. How patiently 
did he bear with their narrowness ! What pains 
did he take to enlighten and enlarge their views! 
With what terms of endearment did he address 
those simple minded men, calling them his friends, 
his children, occasionally reproving them, but never 
breathing a word of contempt ! We divide our- 
selves into classes ; we acknowledge distinctions 
of place and education ; we can accord our sym- 
pathy only to such as we consider constituted like 
ourselves, possessed of a similar amount of informa- 
tion ; we are prone to shut ourselves up, as if 
there were few or none capable of any communion 
with us. 

Plow humbling the contrast between the great 
Master and his modern disciples ! Vast was the 
distinction between him and that lowly circle that 
surrounded him. 

They were ignorant. He was inspired with the 
profoundest wisdom. Their imaginations were car- 
ried away by tbe fading glories of the world. He 
looked at things invisible, heavenly, everlasting; 



JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES. 145 

yet wide as was the difference between liim and 
them, he loved them still, and took the heartiest 
interest in their society. They could afford him 
no comfort proportionate to his need; still he evi- 
dently was comforted by their simple devotion, 
and their presence soothed the burthened heart of 
the Man of Sorrows. And what strength did they 
in their turn draw from him] As the branches 
derive nourishment from the parent vine, so they 
became new men, rich in immortal fruit. Once 
humble laborers, interested only in the daily suc- 
cesses of a mean occupation, knowing and caring 
nothing about the fortunes of the great world, they 
are transformed into the servants of their race. 
The lake of Galilee is forsaken, and the world 
becomes their sphere, and men are the objects of 
their toils. Affections, of which they dreamed not, 
awake within them; and they hunger so for a 
world's welfare, that they are ready to sacrifice every 
thing for it, the good opinion of men, the favor of 
the great, and life itself. An unconquerable energy 
is infused into their whole being, and they become 
conspicuous in achieving the greatest revolution the 
world has ever known ; a revolution which prostrated 
thousands of altars and thrones, and reared vast 
empires on their ruins ; and now the names of those 

13 



146 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

first disciples have become household words upon 
the lips of nations. 

Their Master assured them they should sit upon 
twelve thrones, and be as twelve judges in Israel. 
The promise has been more than fulfilled. In the 
place they now hold among men, they are far more 
illustrious than the occupants of the proudest thrones 
on earth. 

This wondrous transformation in the fishermen of 
Galilee was wrought by the personal influence of 
Jesus. Through the love he evinced and inspired,, 
new and plenteous communications of life and light 
were made. He strengthened their hearts and hands. 
He was the vine of which they were the branches, 
the body of which they were the vigorous members. 
In the most vital sense of the word, he dwelt with 
them and in them, even when he was no longer 
personally present. Sufiering became honorable in 
their eyes, because it brought them into closer union 
with him, the great Sufferer; and they gloried in 
showing their affection for him, even by tears and 
blood. Such was the power of Jesus as a firiend; 
such was his influence upon those who enjoyed his 
personal regard. 

But the most touching manifestations of his spirit, 
in relation to his disciples, appear in the last hours 



JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES. 147 

which he passed with them just before his death. 
He, who of all men most needed to be comforted 
then, undertakes the office of consoler. The Evan- 
gelist John, in recording so fully the various consid- 
erations by which Jesus sought to sustain the sink- 
ing minds of his followers, has proved his claim to the 
title of the beloved disciple, and shown the congeni- 
ality of his spirit with the spirit of his Master. Well 
do the sons and daughters of affliction turn always 
first to the fourteenth chapter of John. "What a 
fountain of consolation flows forever there ! We may 
judge how utterly cast down the disciples of Jesus 
were at that moment, by the pains he takes to 
moderate their sorrow. He suggests every possible 
topic of comfort. " Be not distressed," he says ; 
" rely upon God ; rely upon me." By their best 
hopes, by the expectation of beholding him again, 
by their regard for him, (" If ye loved me ye 
would rejoice, because I go unto my Father. My 
Father is greater than I,") and for their own true 
comfort, he bids them be of good cheer. 

For their sake, he assures them that it is necessary 
he should depart. " If I go not away, the Comforter 
will not come to you." He promises them that, 
after his departure, they shall have that which shall 
supply his place, another guide, another comforter, 



148 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

the Spirit of Truth ; or, in other words, a true 
spirit, a true mind, a state of feeling, which, being in 
accordance with truth, enabling them to see things 
as they are, and in no false light, would afford them 
guidance and consolation, and be to them, what he 
had been, an instructor and friend. 

His personal presence was an obstacle to the en- 
largement of their views ; for, so long as he was 
with them, despite all that he could do or say, they 
clung to the idea of a wordly empire. 

Their hearts were set upon his assuming a princely 
state. They needed more potent instructions than 
could be conveyed by mortal lips, even though they 
were the lips of Him who spake as never man 
spake. There is no teaching like the teaching of 
events. These are the language of God. Hence 
the words of Jesus were of themselves insufficient 
thoroughly to enlighten his disciples. The facts of 
his life, death, and resurrection were necessary, and 
they wrought vdth power upon his personal friends, 
unsealing their mental vision, and leading them to 
defer more and more unreservedly to his authority. 
With what perfect truth, then, did he say, "It is 
expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not 
away, the Comforter will not come to you." How 
much truer became the spirit of their minds ! 



JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES. 149 

What comfort had they in these better views ! 
Gratefully must they have confessed that the pro- 
mise of their Master was fulfilled. Another Com- 
forter came and took up his abode in their hearts. 

Keader, you are a member of an aiFectionate 
circle. There is one to whom the rest of the little 
band look mth fondest hopes, a parent or a child. 
He is in no feeble sense your life. The idea of 
losing him you cannot entertain. What would 
become of you '? How could you live, and what 
should you live for, if that idol w^re taken from 
you 1 The sun may go down at noon ; the earth 
may be shaken out of its place ; but if that life is 
touched, chaos would come to you, and existence 
be without form and void. To you, that precious 
friend is scarcely less than Jesus was to his disciples, 
the centre of your hopes, the spring of your life. 
But suddenly that light is quenched ; the rock on 
which you rest vanishes ; and for you it is as if a 
great voice, like that heard by the Roman when he 
burst into the burning temple of Nature, saying, 
" Let us depart," and creation were forsaken of its 
God. And yet wdth what truth might your depart- 
ing friend take up the words, " It is expedient for 
you that I go away; for if I go not away, the 
Comforter will not come." How little have we of 

13* 



150 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

a true spirit, while we are clinging idolatrously to a 
being, frail as ourselves ! We are living in the 
light of a human countenance, on which the ghast- 
liness of death may pass at any moment, when we 
were made to live in the cloudless light of eternal 
truth. It is necessary for us that those, who are to 
us as gods, should go away ; for while they remain, 
and we lavish on them all our affections, the true 
Comforter cannot come. 



THE HEAET'S SONG. 



BY REV. A. C. COX. 



In the silent midniglit watches, 

List thy bosom door ; 
How it knocketh — knocketh — knocketh- 

Knocketh evermore ! 
Say not 'tis thy pulse's beating, 

'T is thy heart of sin ; 
'Tis thy Saviour stands entreatmg, 

Rise, and let me in. 

Death comes down, with equal footstep. 

To the hall and hut ; 
Think you Death will stand a-knocking, 

Where the door is shut ? 
Jesus waiteth — waiteth — waiteth — 

But thy door is fast ; 
Griev'd at length, away he turneth — 

Death breaks in at last I 



152 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Then 't is thine to stand entreating 

Christ to let thee in ; 
At the door of heaven beating, 

Wailing for thy sin. 
Nay, alas, thou foolish virgin, 

Hast thou then forgot 1 
Jesus waited long to know thee. 

But — he knows thee not I 



MOSES SEEING THE INVISIBLE. 

BY THE REV. JOSEPH H. JONES, D. D. 

In the account given of the Exodus of the 
Hebrews from Egypt, nothing surprises us more 
than the conduct of their leader. 

His refusing to be caUed the son of Pharaoh's 
daughter, an alliance by which he would have 
succeeded to the throne of Egypt ; his " choosing 
to suffer affliction with the people of God," rather 
than to receive honor from their oppressors ; his 
bold and fearless intercession ; and at last, the 
manner of his exit, not deterred by the menaces of 
the king. 

However appalling the prospect before him, in the 
view of others — disgrace, poverty, extreme bodily 
peril, and perhaps death — yet none of these things 
moved him. There were other things, and greater 
far than these, by which he was influenced, and 



154 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

that had a substantial presence, though invisible to 
the eye of sense. 

Those grand and awful realities of the unseen 
world, hidden from the vision of others, were vir- 
tually open to his ; and hence Moses acted as if the 
Judge of quick and dead, to whom he was to give 
an account, was present, to counsel, direct, and 
overawe him. 

But what is here affirmed of him, must be more 
or less true in relation to all who are governed by 
his principles. While the objects which present 
the predominant motives, or the main springs of 
their conduct, are unseen, they act habitually as if 
they were visibly before them. But the idea here is 
complex, and contains the following two. 

That the things which furnish the most cogent 
motives to a reHgious life are invisible; and that 
the true and consistent believer lives habitually as 
if he saw them. 

The former of these propositions, it is well known, 
has been urged by the skeptical as a serious objec- 
tion to our religion. That it is so hidden, and 
obscure, and unsearchable, and so little conversant 
with objects of sense, that are best suited to affect 
us in our present condition — that its rewards and 
punishments, mainly, are prospective, or look to 



MOSES SEEING THE INVISIBLE. 155 

a future state, and not to the present. So of its doc- 
trines — how abstruse and incomprehensible; and 
what a thick and impenetrable darkness hangs over 
the grave ! Who knows in reahty any thing about 
it 1 You require us to beheve, say they, that what 
we caU death is but the beginning of everlasting 
life ; that dying is not the end of consciousness, but 
a physical change, or a separation of the mortal 
from the immortal part of man ; and this but for a 
season, when they are to be united again in another 
world, and to be forever happy or miserable, accord- 
ing to the moral condition of the man at his exit. 
But how Httle of this is warranted by what we see, 
while so much that is visible seems to militate 
against it ! The Saviour, who is represented as 
the only object of hope and trust for the guilty, 
is also imseen; and God, no eye hath seen nor 
can see in this world certainly, and perhaps in the 
world to come ! Now why is this "? Why should 
that sort of truth, on whose practical influence 
depends the eternal well-being of the soul, be so 
hidden from our senses 1 "Why not mdulge us 
occasionally with the sight of a resurrection 1 — the 
thing is so easy for God to do ! Why not permit the 
re-appearing of a departed friend, to tell us about 
the invisible world] Why could not the Apostle 



156 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Paul, Father Austin, or Luther, Calvin, Wesley, or 
some other distinguished spirit, come back for a 
time, for the comfort and confirmation of our faith, 
as did Moses and Elias for the benefit of Peter and 
John 1 Is not the object of sufficient importance 
to warrant it 1 

And to this we can but briefly reply, — that the ob- 
jection implied in these inquiries would be weighty, 
if the evidence of sense were the only sort that is sat- 
isfactory and conclusive ; were it in all circumstances 
the best, and if the main hindrance to a practical 
belief of religious truth were in the mind, and 
capable of being dislodged by argument, and not 
in the heart, beyond the reach of any appeals to 
the reason ; or had not the utter impotency of this 
ocular demonstration been exposed by repeated cases 
of restoration to life, recorded in the Scriptures, 
and none more signal than the example of Lazarus ; 
we might then admit, that a want of the evidence of 
sense to certain truths of our religion, is a solid 
argument against it. But the power of this has 
been tried under both economies of the church ; 
and had the Saviour condescended to open the door 
of the unseen world a hundred times, and evoked 
Abraham, and Jacob, and scores of departed Hebrews 
to the earth again, it could have proved no more 



MOSES SEEING THE INYISIBLE. 157 

concerning a future state of existence, than was 
shown in thus recalling the spirit of this brother 
of Bethany. Indeed, the understanding of the spec- 
tators was convinced; and the evangelist tells us 
that the chief priests and pharisees admitted the 
reahty of his miracle, but the truth which it con- 
firmed was repelled by their heart. 

It is therefore a mistake, that the motives of 
religion are so inoperative, because they are drawn 
from things that are invisible or remote. Indeed, it 
could easily be shown, as a well known author has 
demonstrated, that " it is rather our senses that are 
continually leading us into error, and that our 
knowledge, even of sensible objects around us, is to 
a very great extent more presumptive than real." 
Who is yet to be told that the language, or terms of 
what we call science, are rather symbols of what 
we do not know, than exponents of what we 
do ? — The moment we begin to catechise this Phi- 
losophy, which is the idol of the unbeliever, and ask 
her to explain her vocabulary, and tell us what 
she means by such familiar words as Matter and 
Motion — Gravitation — Electricity — Life — Space 
— Mind — Soul and Body — she is confounded at 
once ; we turn aside, dissatisfied with her ingenious 
nomenclature of technical definitions, invented, as 

14 



158 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

we see, to conceal her ignorance; and are left as 
unacquainted with the nature or essences of objects 
that we see, and hear, and taste, and feel, as we are 
of the invisible things of God. 

There is as much which is perplexing in science, 
and which is to be received on credit, as there is in 
religion. A signal illustration of these remarks 
might be taken from the writings of the amiable 
Berkeley, who has evinced such masterly acumen in 
endeavoring to disprove the existence of matter, in 
maintaining that we and all around us are phan- 
toms, ideas, or spirit, and there is no such thing as 
material substance. Amazing effrontery ! you say ; 
a trifling with the reason and common sense and 
understanding of men, which is unpardonable in 
any, and more especially in an eminent prelate, a 
consecrated teacher of rehgion. And yet the Bishop 
of Cloyne has only taken up the principles laid 
dovni by philosophy — the pride and glory of ration- 
alism; the philosophy of men of no less repute 
than Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke, as their 
doctrines have been generally received and carried 
out to their legitimate conclusions. Indeed, the 
very works in which this theory is defended were 
written against skeptics and atheists ; and while the 
Christian reader finds nothing in them to impair his 



MOSES SEEING THE INVISIBLE. 159 

confidence in religion, he certainly does not think 
more highly of human reason or philosophy. It 
argues poorly for the infallibility of this, that 
Bishop Berkeley should have written a book, (that, 
according to Eeid and others, never has been, nor 
can be answered,) in which he has proved, by 
irrefutable arguments, what no man in his senses 
ever can beheve. 

We might turn then upon the boaster of the 
sufficiency of reason, and inquire. Why is this ? 
Why is knowledge, derived through the senses and 
by study, so uncertain and unsatisfying'? and what 
solution can be given of a problem so occult, unless 
we receive that which revelation furnishes in the 
lapsed and degenerate condition of man; which 
teaches, that " the things which are seen" are un- 
certain, unsatisfying, and fallacious, but that those 
which are real and worthy of trust are " invisible." 
That while they who look to the former, will be dis- 
appointed and lost, like mariners who embark in an 
unseaworthy ship; those, on the other hand, will 
infallibly be happy, as well as secure, who rely on 
that higher good which lies beyond and without the 
scope of mortal vision; that new and surprising 
faculty, by the help of which these things, so un- 
seen and remote, are apprehended, is called Faith. 



160 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Hence the scriptural classification of believers and 
unbelievers is founded, not on the comparative 
amount of their intellect, their advantages of educa- 
tion, nor theoretical religious knowledge, but on the 
state of their hearts. The difficulty in believing or 
disbelieving any credible proposition, as is familiarly 
known, depends less upon the amount of evidence 
by which it is supported, than on its being adapted 
to the taste. 

How much easier to convince a man of what he 
loves and wishes to believe, than of what he dislikes ! 
" If you would have me believe you," says Jeremy 
Taylor, " my heart must be in unison with your 
proposition." To produce this " unison," is the 
prerogative of the Spirit. By his effective teach- 
ings, the heart, with its affections and tastes, is 
brought into conformity with the heavenly " propo- 
sition," or the invisible realities of the spiritual 
world, which are now become operative on the 
conduct. 

And of this new or second order of persons, rep- 
resented by Moses, we may affirm not only that they 
see what is invisible to others, but that they live as 
though they saw it, Faith, evangelical faith ! 
brings spiritual objects, remote as they are to sense, 
so near as to give them a substantial presence. 



MOSES SEEING THE INVISIBLE. 161 

Hence faith is defined to be the " substance of 
things hoped for, and the evidence of things not 
seen ; " or, as Archbishop Leighton expresses its 
agency, " Faith lifts the soul, not only above sense 
and sensible things, but above reason herself; and, 
as reason corrects the errors of sense, so faith cor- 
rects the mistakes of reason. To the eye of the 
body, the sun seems less than the wheel of a chariot ; 
but reason teaches the philosopher that it is bigger 
than the whole earth, and the cause that it seems so 
little, is its great distance. 

" The naturally wise man is equally deceived by 
this carnal reason in his estimate of Jesus Christ, the 
Sun of Righteousness, and the cause is the same, 
viz., his great distance from him. He accounts 
Christ and his glory as smaller matter than his own 
gain, honor, or pleasure ; for these are near him, 
and he sees their quantity to the full, and counts 
them bigger, yea, far more worth than they are 
indeed." But they, who are so enlightened as to see 
these distant glories of Christ in their proper di- 
mensions, not only acknowledge their paramount 
excellency, but live as though they saw them. 

The unseen heaven is constantly before them as 
their home, the place of their everlasting rest; 
so that, in all their wanderings as pilgrims and 

14* 



162 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

sojourners, they never lose sight of a mansion in 
this house of their Father. 

The unseen hell, too, is before them — not as a 
figment of pagan mythology, but as an apalling 
reality, to be escaped as Lot was urged to flee from 
the fire and brimstone bursting upon Sodom. The 
law of God is before them. It was unseen once, 
and, Hke Saul of Tarsus, they " were alive without 
it ; " but the scales have fallen from their eyes also, 
and they see it plainly now. Once it was in the 
path before them invisible, like the angel with a 
drawn sword in the way of Balaam ; but now they 
see, that, had they been left of God a little longer, 
they would have been slain upon its point. Such, 
then, is a characteristic distinction between the two 
classes that are found in the Christian community, 
the real behever and the nominal ; and if only they 
belong to the former, who evince their faith in the 
invisible realities of religion by their life, must we 
not infer that the number of those who possess the 
faith of the gospel is much smaller than the number 
of those who profess it 1 

Where is the man who lives habitually as if he 
felt the eye of the invisible and rein-trying God to 
be continually upon him? Who is he that treats 
the precepts of the law as if its Omnipotent Author 



MOSES SEEING THE INVISIBLE. 163 

were present to bestow its gracious rewards, or 
enforce its terrific penalties '? 

Did we but cherish habitually a practical sense 
of the Divine presence, what a controlling influence 
would it exert upon our conduct. What an effect 
would it have upon the grossly profane, the dis- 
honest, the licentious, and the vile, did they but 
realize that the penetrating eye of this pure and 
Omniscient God is pursuing them in every haunt 
of iniquity, however secret and hidden from the eye 
of man ! 

To the great mass of such, alas ! he is only a 
Deity in theory, the article of a creed, a metaphysi- 
cal abstraction, — " a God afar off", and not at hand." 
But how soon must this Epicurian dreaming be over, 
and the curtain fall which now separates the " seen 
from the invisible." It may seem distant to many, 
at the same time that it is fearfully near. A slip of 
your foot, a mistake of your apothecary or doctor, 
a cold, a fever, an epidemic disease, an accident 
as the world calls it, or some arrow from the ten 
thousand, which fill the Almighty's quiver, may 
lay us low before the dawning of another sun, and 
reveal to us the visible retributions of eternity ! 

Nor are these things any more distant or unreal, 
because so many treat them as the mere fiction of 



164 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

a Virgil or Dante, and not the inspirations of God. 
Man is not a spiritual alien and a wanderer because 
his true condition has not been revealed ; he rejects 
the Saviour, not because he does not hear him 
preached, nor even listen with assent to the story 
of his coming, and works, and suffering, as a firiend 
and substitute ; but, with all this persuasion of his 
mind and conscience, he is still an unbeliever. 

Like the spectators at the grave of Lazarus, he 
sets at naught the truth which he admits. The 
arrow of conviction falls short of his heart, and the 
real excellency of the Saviour is invisible. Imagine 
a garden of exquisite beauty, adorned with every 
plant, and fruit, and flower, that money and taste 
can collect, with fountains and rivulets to add to its 
varied attractions. Suppose that you meet a stranger 
here, who, with an eye to all appearance healthful, 
passes along without bestowing the least attention 
upon a single object ; in your bursts of rapturous 
delight, as you look at this or that most beautiful 
parterre, blooming in beauty and exhaUng the 
sweetest fragrance, he is silent, and responds by 
returning only a vacant gaze ; surely, you would 
say, this stranger is blind — eyes he has, but they 
see not, or he does not see as I see, or what I see ; 
and upon inquiry, your conjecture is found to be 



MOSES SEEING THE INVISIBLE. 165 

correct. What you see is invisible to him; the 
man is blind, and something more is wanted than 
your taste, botanical knowledge, and commendation, 
to make him share in your enjoyment. 

The case supposed is easily interpreted. "The 
natural man," says the apostle, " receiveth not the 
things of the Spirit of God, for they are fooHshness 
unto him, neither can he know, because they are 
spiritually discerned." 

" The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
firmament showeth his handy work." All nature 
teems with exhibitions of his greatness and good- 
ness, as revelation glows with the glory of his grace. 
The earth is flooded with light, and the man has 
the medium, but he wants the faculty of vision. 
Come, then, O thou Spirit of light and life, descend 
as thou didst on chaos in the beginning, and brood 
over the writer as well as the reader of these pages. 
" What in us is dark, illumine ; what is low, raise 
and support." Reveal to our hearts, as well as our 
minds, the unseen realities of that brighter, better 
world, — where faith is changed to sight, and hope 
expires in fruition. 



"JESUS OF NAZAEETH PASSETH BY." 



BY MRS L. H. SIGOURNEY. 



Watcher, who wakest by the bed of pain, 
While the stars sweep on with their midnight train. 
Stifling the tear for thy loved one's sake, 
Holding thy breath lest her sleep should break. 
In thy loneUest hour there 's a helper nigh, — 
" Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." 

Stranger, afar from thy native land. 
Whom no one takes with a brother's hand. 
Table and hearthstone are glowing free, 
Casements are sparkling, but not for thee ; 
There is one who can tell of a home on high, — 
" Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." 

Sad one, in secret bending low, 

A dart in thy breast that the world may know, 



JESUS OF NAZARETH PASSETH BY. 167 

Wrestling, the favor of God to win, 
His seal of pardon for days of sin ; 
Press on, press on, with thy prayerful cry, — 
" Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." 

Mourner, who sittest in the churchyard lone, 
Scanning the lines on that marble stone. 
Plucking the weeds from thy children's bed, 
Planting the myrtle and rose instead. 
Look up from the tomb with a tearful eye, — 
" Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." 

Fading one, with the hectic streak, 
In thy veins of fire and thy wasted cheek, 
Fearest thou the shade of the darkened vale. 
Look to the Guide who can never fail ; 
He hath trod it himself! He will hear thy sigh, — 
" Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." 



JESUS AT THE WELL OF SAMAEIA. 

BY REV. JAMES FLINT, D. D., SALEM, MASS. 

Whoever reads the several evangelists with the 
slightest attention, will perceive that we are indebted 
to John, the beloved disciple, for our knowledge of 
many of the most interesting incidents, which oc- 
curred in the ministry of Jesus, and particularly for 
a more detailed account of some of his most remark- 
able conversations. As an instance in point, we 
have, in the fourth chapter of John's gospel, an 
invaluable record of what took place, and of the 
pregnant and very remarkable discourse of Jesus at 
the well of Samaria. 

As usual, from the commencement to the close of 
his public ministry, Jesus was going about teaching 
and doing good. He was now journeying from 
Judea to Galilee. His most direct route would 
lead him through the confines of Samaria. About 
mid-day, fatigued with travelling under the scorch- 
ing sun of that warm climate, he reached the fertile 



JESUS AT THE WELL OF SAMARIA. 169 

plain of Sichem, and sat down by a remarkable well 
near Sychar. Here he rested beneath the refreshing 
shade of the palm or other trees, which it has 
always been customary in the East to plant around 
the wells, to which the neighboring inhabitants re- 
sort to supply themselves with water in their dwell- 
ings, and to give drink to their cattle. He had sent 
his disciples into the city to procure food, so that he 
was left alone to enjoy the cool atmosphere about 
the well, sheltered by the thick foliage of the trees 
from the burning rays of the noontide sun. 

In the meantime, during the absence of the 
disciples, a Samaritan woman came to the well for 
water. After his accustomed manner, always intent 
upon the execution of his divine mission, he holds 
a most interesting and instructive conversation with 
this woman, evidently of the uneducated working 
class of females. Knowing, and as he elsewhere 
gives thanks, that it was the will of his Father that 
what was hidden from the wise should he revealed to 
hahes, having come from the Father to break down 
the world-barriers, that separated his children, — to 
glorify and show to them the greatness of their com- 
mon nature, — he speaks to the woman, and, as a 
friendly wayfarer, requests her to give him a drink of 
water from the vessel she brought with her to take 

15 



170 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

water from the well. She, in reply, expresses her sur- 
prise that he, being a Jew, should ask drink of her, 
a Samaritan woman, supposing him, like the rest of 
his countrymen, infected with the national scorn and 
hatred of the Samaritans. How beautiful and of 
how deep significance the reply of Jesus : " If thou 
knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to 
thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of 
him, and he would have given thee living water." 
Jesus here either speaks of himself as the gift of 
God, who is called by Paul the unspeakable gift^ or 
he has reference to that, next to -Jesus, greatest, 
best, divinest gift of God, viz. the Holy Spirit, 
which he elsewhere assures us, God is more ready 
to give to them that ask this inestimable boon in 
true prayer, than the best of human parents are to 
give to their children, that ask of them such things 
as they have to give. 

Jesus was himself the greatest, most perfect mani- 
festation of the love of God ; his teachings were all 
of them unerring, divine truth ; his life was a sin- 
less, all-loving exhibition of the Divine life, which 
it was the great end of his mission to communicate 
to as many as should receive and obey the truth, by 
living as Jesus taught and lived. He accordingly 
paints to the woman that sanctifying truth, that 



JESUS AT THE WELL OF SAMARIA. 171 

Divine life, which he was teaching and living under 
the beautiful image of a well-spring of living water 
— an image most delightful to an inhabitant of a 
sultry eastern clime. The woman, understanding 
Jesus to mean the water in the well, asks, as the 
well was deep and he had nothing to draw with, 
" From whence then hast thou that living water ? 
Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave 
us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his 
children and his cattle 1 " Of the new and spiritual 
life of faith, — of the happiness of cordially re- 
ceiving his truth, and living his heavenly and divine 
life, no language could convey a more vivid and 
delightful idea than the reply of Jesus to the 
woman. " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall 
thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water 
that I shall give him, shall never thirst ; but the 
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well 
of water springing up unto everlasting life." Thus, 
under this figure, Jesus pictured forth for her the 
Divine life, which he had come to impart, which 
alone can quench the thirst of the soul, and is, for 
all who receive it, an endless stream of life flowing 
onward into eternity. 

This was all too spiritual and heavenly for the 
comprehension of this poor, uninstructed, unspir- 



172 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

itual, Samaritan woman. She, in her simplicity 
replies, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, 
neither come hither to draw." His words must 
have appeared to her not a little enigmatical; but 
the principal idea she received from them was to 
her very delightful, — that of having a living foun- 
tain of water to bear about within her, like the 
camel of her country, ever ready for daily use, and 
to quench her thirst without the labor of coming to 
the well for it. 

Jesus, that he might impress her untaught and 
unsophisticated mind with a sense of his super- 
natural endowments and character, gives a turn to 
the conversation, that proved to her that her private 
history was known to him. He says to her, " Go, 
call thy husband, and come hither." She replies, 
as he must have known she would, "I have no 
husband." Jesus says to her, " Thou hast well said, 
I have no husband ; for thou hast had five husbands, 
and he, whom thou now hast, is not thy husband ; 
in that thou saidst truly," The woman instantly, 
as he must have intended she should, inferred from 
the remarkable stranger's knowledge of her present 
condition, and the private history of her past life, 
that he must be a prophet. It is the opinion of an 
eminent commentator upon the passage, that Jesus 



JESUS AT THE WELL OF SAMARIA. 173 

also gave this turn to the conversation " to make 
the vroman look within, as self-knowledge alone can 
prepare us rightly to apprehend divine things." 
She immediately, and most naturally, besides wish- 
ing to divert the attention of the wonderful stranger 
from her not very creditable private character, 
adverts to the great point of dispute that had 
engendered the rancorous and irreconcilable hatred, 
that had so long subsisted between the Jews and 
Samaritans. " Our fathers," she says, pointing to 
Mount Gerizim, towering near by in solemn gran- 
deur above the plain, " worshipped in this mountain; 
but you [Jews] say that Jerusalem is the place 
where men ought to worship." Instead of directly 
settling the question, as she seems to have expected 
he would, being as he was a prophet, who must 
know which was in the right, the Jews or the 
Samaritans, while he indirectly decides in favor of 
Jerusalem, Jesus announces one of the grandest and 
most momentous objects of his mission, viz. the 
abolition of the merely outward, ritual Jewish 
worship, — a worship restricted to particular times 
and a specified place, — and the introduction instead 
of a purely spiritual worship, subject to no restric- 
tions in regard to times or place, — the soul's 
worship of God, as the universal Father, who is 

15* 



174 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Spirit, and can be acceptably worshipped only by 
the mind or spirit, in the exercise of spiritual affec- 
tions and affinities, that assimilate the soul of the 
worshipper to the Divinity, who is Spirit, and the 
loving Father of all human spirits. " Jesus saith 
unto her. Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, 
when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at 
Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye 
know not what; we know what we worship; for 
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, 
and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship 
the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father 
seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit, and 
they that worship him, must worship him in spirit 
and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know 
that Messias cometh, which is called Christ ; when 
he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith 
unto her, I that speak unto thee, am he." 

Thus, worship by external rites, restricted to 
particular times, or to a particular place, as was 
that of the Jews, he tells the woman, is soon to 
be superseded by the spiritual worship, which he 
describes. The Jewish worship was to be continued 
till after the manifestation, or coming of the 
Kedeemer and his kingdom. It was to prepare 
the way for the Redeemer, that this worship had 



JESUS AT THE WELL OF SAMARIA. 175 

been instituted and was continued in Jerusalem, and 
that the prophets from time to time announced and 
prepared the minds of the people of Judea to 
expect the coming of the Messiah. Hence the 
Jews knew what their worship meant. The Samar- 
itans, receiving only the Pentateuch, and discarding 
the other sacred writings of the Jews, including the 
Prophets, knew not the purport of their worship. 
It was from the Jews that the Messiah, or the 
salvation he was to bring, should come. Afterwards 
their ritual, external worship was to be superseded 
by the true, internal, soul-worship of the Father. 

This true worship, Jesus tells the woman is soon 
to prevail, — is already begun. It was realized in 
its perfection in himself, and he was sowing the 
seeds that would perfect it in his disciples, and 
through them in all who should receive and live 
the truth, which Jesus taught and lived. 

He had now made himself known to the woman 
as the Messiah, — had announced and described to 
her the Divine life and the true spiritual worship of 
the Father, which he came to introduce. Upon the 
communication to the woman of this sublime truth 
by Jesus, a celebrated German divine makes the 
following remark. " The aristocracy of education, 
the one-sided intellectualism of the ancient world, 



176 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

was uprooted by Christ when he uttered this grand 
truth to an uneducated woman, who belonged to 
an ignorant and uncultivated people. For all men 
alike, the Highest must spring from life, and not 
j&:om culture." * 

As Jesus was thus concluding his discourse with 
the woman, his disciples came with the provisions 
they had purchased; and they marvelled that he 
should be talking with the woman. Yet none of 
them, however curious they might be to learn why, 
or upon what subjects, he had been conversing with 
the woman, presumed to question him. The woman 
in joyful haste, leaving the vessel she had brought 
to take water from the well, ran to the city, and 
says to the men she met, " Come, see a man, who 
told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the 
Christ % " They then came out of the city, and in 
crowds thronged the way to Jesus. 

In the meanwhile, the disciples urge him to 
partake of the food they had procured. "But he 
said to them, I have meat to eat, that ye know not 
of" They, understanding his words in their literal 
sense, began to divine where he could have 
obtained food in their absence, and why he con- 

* Neander's Life of Christ, p. 184. 



JESUS AT THE WELL OF SAMARIA. 177 

versed with the Samaritan woman, supposing him 
infected, like themselves, with the national preju- 
dice, which prevented the Jews from having any 
fiiendly intercourse with the Samaritans. Jesus 
then drops the figure, and in plain language says 
to them, " My meat is to do the will of him that 
sent me, and to finish his work." As if he had said, 
' To sow the seed for the general diffusion of the 
kingdom of God among men, — to fulfil the gracious 
purposes of my mission, — this is my most satisfying 
refreshment, the repast most invigorating and grate- 
ful to my spirit, that can suspend even the sensations 
of bodily fatigue and hunger.' While he would 
thus make his disciples comprehend the unquench- 
able zeal he felt, and the joy it gave him to announce 
glad tidings to the poor, to direct as many as possible 
in the way to spiritual blessedness and eternal life, 
crowds of people were seen approaching from the 
city. Animated with the prospect of prosecuting 
with success the object of his mission, and of com- 
municating to these Samaritans the divine truths he 
was commissioned to proclaim to the world, he 
continues his discourse, comparing the crowd before 
him to a field of wheat, ripe for gathering, himself 
and his disciples to reapers. 

It was in the midst of seed-time, which in that 



178 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

region ranges between the middle of October and 
the middle of December, and the laborers were seen 
preparing and sowing the fields for a future harvest ; 
and Jesus says to his disciples, " Say not ye there 
are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest. 
Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look 
on the fields ; for they are white already for the 
harvest." As if he had said, ' The husbandman 
labors, as you see, endures heat and fatigue, and, 
often made anxious by drought and other unpropi- 
tious aspects of the season, waits long in submission 
and patience for the appointed months of harvest. 
But see, without the toil or delay of going from 
place to place, these poor, unhappy, ignorant, and 
despised Samaritans are flocking towards us to find 
the Messiah, and to be instructed in his kingdom. 
The food, the refreshment of my spirit, of which I 
spoke just now, my chosen and chief joy, as I am 
preparing you to do to others, is to teach this multi- 
tude, and as many as will hearken to me, the will of 
my Father, and to lead them into the way that 
conducteth to eternal life.' Still continuing his 
discourse, Jesus adds, " He that reapeth [in this 
field] receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life 
eternal; that both he that soweth and he that 
reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that 



JESUS AT THE WELL OF SAMARIA. 179 

saying true, one soweth and another reapeth. I 
have sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no 
labor ; other men have labored, and ye have entered 
into their labors." 

Jesus here is supposed to have covertly alluded 
to his death. He was to sow the seed of Divine 
truth ; his disciples were to reap the harvest, which 
would not be till after his death, which was neces- 
sary to produce the harvest ; as he says of himself 
elsewhere, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it 
bringeth forth much fruit. And I, if I be lifted up 
from the earth, [signifying what death he should 
die,] will draw all men unto me." He that sowed 
the seed should die, and they should reap. In the 
words of the writer before cited, " A profound 
glance into the soul of Christ, and the secret con- 
nection of his thoughts, is now opened to us. He 
cannot utter this prediction of the glorious harvest 
that is to follow the seed which he has sown, with- 
out the mournful though pleasant thought, that he 
should not live to see its gathering. He must leave 
the earth before the harvest-home; nay, his death 
itself is to prepare the way for it. So he tells his 
disciples that they should reap what he had sown ; 
but he shall rejoice with them. ***** 



180 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

Distant intimations like this were the only an- 
nouncements of his approaching death, that Christ 
made at this early period of his ministry."* The 
rejoicing together of Jesus and his disciples, which 
he here announces, was not to be realized in its 
highest and ultimate fruition, till they too should 
die, and go to he with him where he is, and there to 
rejoice together with him in his Father's heavenly 
presence, to go no more out forever. 

Thus forgetful of the wants of the body, while he 
could gratify the hunger and thirst of his divine 
spirit in feeding the famishing souls of men with the 
bread of life, did Jesus at that ancient well of 
Samaria, memorable in patriarchal history, reveal 
himself and the eternal life to the soul of a poor, 
despised Samaritan woman; and at the same time 
instruct and prepare his disciples to enter upon the 
God-appointed and laborious duties of their apostle- 
ship, — unfolding to their view eternal rewards, the 
mutual rejoicings together of the laborers, and of all 
who should be saved through the instrumentality of 
their labors. 

* Neander's Life of Christ, p. 185. 



LAZAEUS. 



BY GEORGE BETTNER, ESQ. 



Behold the tomb where Friendship sleeps, 
The Saviour bows — he bows and weeps ; 
'T is thus he mourns for those that die, 
When none to soothe or save are nigh. 

What tenderness reserved for thee. 
Thou humble one of Bethany ! 
Heaven never shone in brighter beam. 
From Tabor's mount or Jordan's stream. 

" Hadst thou been here he had not died," — 
What agony his bosom tried ! 
On Heaven he called, nor called in vain. 
The dead walks forth to life again. 

His bands are loosed, and freed he goes 
To share the world's unpitied woes. 
To feel the pangs that flesh must brave. 
And find his Paradise the grave. 

16 



RUTH. 



BY MRS. LYDIA JANE PIERSON. 



" Thy God shall be my God ! " Strong was the faith 
Of that young Moabitess, who forsook 
Her native country and her father's house 
For Israel's God. There is no spot on earth, 
Where sunshine is so bright, the dew so pure. 
The grass so green, the summer flowers so sweet, 
The birds so blithe, as in our native land. 

Beside our fathers' heartstone gushes up 
The only spring of human tenderness, 
In which the heart can bathe without a fear 
Of falsehood, treachery, or forgetfulness. 

But E-uth had heard of God. She could not stay 
Where men boAV down to demons ; so she broke 
All her heart's idols, and went trembling forth. 
Poor and a widow, to a strange land. 
To seek the living God. No dream of love. 
Of wealth, or fame, allured her. Meek of heart 
Was that fair, gentle creature, who went forth 



RUTH. 183 

To be a gleaner in the field of him 

With whom she could find grace. Well didst thou 

prove, 
Thou young devoted proselyte to God, 
That he is a rewarder of all those 
That diligently seek him. 

Couldst thou then, 
TSHiile gleaning barley o'er the stubble field. 
Have look'd beyond the impenetrable mist, 
That hides the vista of futurity 
From our presumptuous vision, thou hadst seen 
Love, wealth, and princely honors waiting thee ; 
And thy descendants, an illustrious line 
Of kings and princes, reaching down to Him, 
Of whose dominion there shall be no end, 
And thy name written for posterity. 
And honored to the latest hour of time. 



SIMON PETEE. 



BY REV. F. W. HOLLAND. 



A MORE simple character than Peter's could not 
well be studied. The oldest of the apostles — one 
of the earliest of the disciples — a fisherman by 
profession — the Saviour's host at Capernaum — the 
first in danger, first in duty, first in the confession of 
Christ, and first in his denial — he seems the born 
head of the new church, until the conversion of 
Paul gave to the cause a champion yet more heroic. 
His life certainly cannot be wanting in the highest 
moral lessons ; his spirit may well pass before us, to 
rebuke our halting obedience, our languid attach- 
ment, our half-way confession of the Master. 

There is, I cannot but think, peculiar confirmation 
of the credibility of the gospels, in their artless yet 
perfectly symmetrical presentation of Peter. Unac- 
quainted as they were with the sketching of charac- 
ter, an art of very modern date, here is a character 



SIMON PETER. 185 

uniformly in harmony with itself — a character 
running its marked traits to excess, yet never devi- 
ating from them — doing at times what it seemed 
impossible for him to do, yet just as unconscious as 
a babe of his extravagance — surprising us with 
wonderful glimpses of heroism, which look strange 
enough beside his frequent cowardice, yet which, 
viewed a little farther, stand out before us in a lus- 
trous consistency — whose development comes along 
necessarily in the current of the Saviour's expe- 
rience. 

Who does not see that these most childlike 
narrators give us, in every thing which this apostle 
does or fails to do, the same disinterestedness and 
daring, the same forward, sanguine spuit, the same 
entire ignorance of himself, the same perfect rehance 
on Christ 1 and yet, mingling in bold contrast with 
this, what a headstrong and precipitate temper, how 
easily surprised, how soon dismayed, how continu- 
ally liable to veer from one pole of feeling to the 
other. 

The same fervid zeal that impelled him to walk 
needlessly on the swollen sea — that protested, " I 
will lay down my life for thy sake" — that even 
rebuked Jesus when he spake of his own death, 
saying, " Be it far from thee, it shall not be done 

16* 



186 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

unto thee ! " — that exclaimed at the supper, " Thou 
-shalt never wash my feet " — that drew the unbid- 
den weapon of assault, and gave the first blow in 
the garden of betrayal — preserves every where the 
same moral likeness. From beginning to end, there 
appear the same fluctuations of thought and emo- 
tion, the same terror at peril, the same treachery in 
extremity, until the resurrection of Jesus and the 
descent of the Holy Spirit started him anew, — a 
changed creature. 

It was the self-same mind which leaped in each 
case to the farthest extreme — which burst out in 
the exclamation, " Not my feet only, but my hands 
and my head " — which cried on the tossing waves, 
" Save me, or I perish," while in perfect safety 
beneath his Master's eye — which shortly after 
denied him with repeated oaths in the judgment- 
hall — which broke forth then in a repentance deep 
as the offence, in a contrition acceptable to the 
searching eye of Jesus, and not wanting in the expe- 
rience of after years — and which, less confident of 
success, would have been very likely to have suc- 
ceeded — less sure of the result, could have made the 
result sure beyond a doubt. Each of these striking 
events is so perfectly Peter-like, that we need not 
his name attached to tell us who said or did thus ; 



SIMON PETER. 187 

as long as it was one of the twelve, we are quite 
certain which one. Any hesitancy about the agent 
is impossible ; all minds fix at once upon a single 
prominent personage ; and, all this symmetry of 
character, without any attempt to put it in the fi:ont, 
nay, without any conception that the facts would 
ever be turned to any such account. 

Circumstances appear to bring out the apostle; 
events as they pass develop his soul ; his impetuous 
spirit places him in the foreground, beside his 
Master ; his headlong zeal throws the rest of the 
band into the shade. And the unquestionable real- 
ity of such a prominent actor invests the whole 
narrative with the drapery of truth ; we feel from 
one such test that we are dealing with real men and 
actual events; we carry this conviction with us 
through the Acts and Epistles, as well as the 
Gospels ; the names there given are no longer mere 
names ; the personages there presenting themselves 
in such brief glimpses are far enough from being 
ideal — they are bone of our bone and flesh of our 
flesh. Such simple, unstudied narratives could never 
have been manufactured to impose upon our credu- 
lity by men, who exhibit, like children, their own 
weakness and worldliness in humbhng contrast with 
the spirituality of Jesus ; no such character could 



188 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

have been perfectly maintained through, the utmost 
variety of incident with entire sameness of thought. 
Such is one of the inartificial testimonials which 
address themselves at once to all hearts, which 
appeal to all consciences alike, which furnish a kind 
of proof, often overlooked by the learned theologian, 
but richly blessed to the disciple's soul. 

But the great thing in Peter's experience is the 
proof it affords, that right feeling is not enough; 
nor right action ; nor, least of all, right conversation, 
a Christian profession before the church or the 
world; that, underlying all these as the granite 
underlies the crust of earth, must be right principle. 

There is no danger that feeling will ever be 
undervalued ; it is so delightful to possess, and so 
beautiful in manifestation ; it is so easily assumed, 
and so generously welcomed ; it is so prompted by 
circumstance, and ministered to by a constant Prov- 
idence, as to require none of that solicitude which 
other parts of Christian character demand. We are 
all attracted to a generous, enthusiastic piety, like 
that of Peter ; while the purity of Nathaniel some- 
times chills us, and the inquiring temper of Thomas 
jars us like a blow. But mere feeling is like the wind 
which fills the sails, and if principle guide not the 
ship, may wreck us all upon the first rock. Feeling 



SIMON PETER. 189 

ebbs and flows perpetually, while principle has the 
same strong, noiseless current, morning, noon, and 
night. Feeling is the sea-flower, now floating on 
the crested waves, now drooping because the tide is 
gone ; now torn rudely off, and tossed away to perish 
by some sterner blast ; while principle is the firm 
old rock, over which the waves dash without dis- 
lodging it firom its bed, or disturbing its deep repose. 

Feeling is a delightful friend and flatterer, an 
excellent helper, but a dangerous master; while 
principle is a counsellor, sure as the sun, like that, 
brightening towards the perfect day as we follow its 
rays. Feeling, mere feeling, betrays us to danger 
and surrounds us with difficulty ; it bids us walk 
the sea, plunge needlessly into the midst of enemies, 
promise what we have no strength to perform ; while 
principle ^svill bear us through even the trial it 
would have taught us to avoid, and deliver from 
untold peril by the wholesome sense of our own 
weakness and the wise distrust of our untried 
strength. 

These times of outward prosperity are thought to 
be times more especially requiring an awakened 
state of religious feeling, rather than the confirma- 
tion of religious principle, or the extension of relig- 



190 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

ious charity, or the elevation of religious trust and 
hope. 

But, I confess to an entirely different view. So 
many have made shipwreck, notwithstanding fervor 
of affection and glowing love to the Saviour, under 
trials they were not prepared to meet, and burdens 
they were not expecting to bear — so many have 
found a piety of emotion die out in the darkness of 
despair, beneath overwhelming temptations ; and 
have denied Jesus, as it were in his presence, while 
the eyes of a larger company than that of Pilate's 
hall turned inquiringly upon them, — that we are 
warned to seek something more than the kindled 
heart. 

There is an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, 
which the swift eddies of life require for the vessel 
that would make her port at last ; there is a conse- 
crated will, which is stronger than worlds ; a manly 
allegiance to duty, which is sure to win at last the 
confidence of men ; a fixed purpose of soul, which 
society reposes upon with immovable trust. And 
this it is which wins respect more than talent, which 
finds honor far beyond any wealth ; and which reaps 
the richest reward in a sublime serenity, shared with 
angels of the presence, a peace which passeth un- 



SIMON PETER. 191 

derstanding, a trust undisturbed by the wreck of 
worlds, a joy such as only martyr-heroes and glori- 
fied apostles have known. And this I find not in 
Peter the disciple, but Peter the missionary preacher 
— not in the timid, shrinking spirit of Pilate's hall, 
but the fearless and world-overcoming herald of the 
cross at Rome. 



THE CONTRAST OF OFFERINGS. 

BY ANSON G. CHESTER, ESQ. 

I STOOD within a temple's walls, 

Amid a restless crowd. 
No pleading eye was turn'd to Heaven, 

No suppliant knee was bowed ; 
They had gold and spice and glowing gems. 

Bright silver Hke the moon ; 
And the singers chanted ancient songs. 

And the organ played its tune. 

They brought the frankincense and myrrh. 

With the stores of sunny climes, 
As the humble shepherds (how unlike !) 

In earth's young troublous times ; 
They seemed to forget that God was there, 

TheMighty Oneof old; 
And methought they made their sacrifice 

To a deity of gold ! 



THE CONTRAST OF OFFERINGS. 
« # # ^ % 

Near yonder softly talking stream 

An aged cottage stands, 
And mocks in its simplicity 

The skill that art commands ; 
The ft-agile woodbine creepeth o'er 

Its roof so old and grey, 
And birds, companions of the lone, 

Sing there the livelong day. 

I passed me by its opened door 

At evening's holy hour. 
When silvery lines were on the sky 

And dews on every flower ; 
An old man humbly kneeled beside 

A rude and rustic chair ; 
A murmur played upon his lip, — 

It was the voice of prayer. 

* * * * * 

The God of Heaven delighteth not 

In the gorgeous sacrifice, 
But he loves the words of grateful lips 

And the glance of tearful eyes ; 

17 



194 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

He dwelleth not where wealth and pomp 

Their costly gifts impart, 
But taketh up his blest abode 

With the meek and pure of heart. 



GOD IS HEEE. 

BY LYDIA JANE PIERSON. 

Where the spring flower peeps, 

With dew diadem crown'd, 
And the little rill creeps 

With its silvery sound ; 
Where the young grass appears, 

And the white lambs play. 
And the child of few years 

Delights to stray ; 
Where song-birds are fluttering 

With notes sweet and clear, 
Soft voices seem uttering, 
God is here ! 

When the storm spirit sprmgs 
From the dark northern caves, 

And spreads his wild wings 
O'er the land and the waves ; 



196 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

When the forests bow down 

As he passes by ; 
When, afraid of his frown, 

The billows fly ; 
When thunders are uttering 

Their voices of fear, 
Deep echoes seem muttering, 
God is here ! 

Where the rough mountain glows 

In the summer-sun sheen. 
Or the clear river flows 

Through its valley of green ; 
Where the healthful breeze 

Waves the pliant grain. 
Or sports with the trees 

Along the plain ; 
Where cattle are lowing. 

And flocks sporting near. 
Each soft sound is echoing, 
God is here ! 

Where the hurricane raves 

Round the rock's shatter'd crest, 

And the pine foliage waves 
Round the strong eagle's nest ; 



GOD IS HERE. 197 

Where, with joyous leap 

And stunning sound, 
Down the fearful steep 

Wild waters bound ; 
Dread spirits supernal. 

With voices of fear. 
Are shouting eternally, 
God is here ! 

The young, beautiful heart, 

In its innocent mirth. 
Ere it learneth the art 

Or the sorrow of earth ; 
When light from above 

Bathes the buds of hope, 
And the blooms of love 

Untarnished ope ; 
Sees earth all loveliness, 

All hearts sincere, 
And cries in its blessedness, 
God is here ! 

To the soul that has known 

Every sorrow and ill. 
That is joyless and lone, 

Stricken, blighted, and chill ; 

17* 



198 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

That sees joy a shade, 
And all earth's flowers 

Frail things that will fade 
In stormy hours ; 

Sweetly the voice of grace 
Sounds in that ear, 

Come to the hiding-place, — 
God is here ! 

The spirit that feels 

All its errors forgiven. 
To which Jesus reveals 

The pure glories of heaven ; 
Though it feels the warm glow 

Of life depart. 
And the blood creep slow 

Through the bursting heart ; 
Even in that agony, 

Knoweth no fear. 
But crieth exultingly, 
God is here ! 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND 
BABYLON. 

BY REV. A. ALEXANDER, D. D. 

The walls of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, are 
said to have been a hundred feet in height, sixty 
miles in compass, and defended by fifteen hundred 
towers, each two hundred feet high. Diodorus Si- 
culus relates, that the king of Assyria, after the 
complete discomfiture of his army, confided in an 
old prophecy, that Nineveh would not be taken 
unless the river should become the enemy of the 
city ; that after an ineffectual siege of two years, the 
river, swollen with long continued and tempestuous 
torrents, inundated part of the city, and threw down 
the wall for the space of twenty furlongs, and that 
the king, deeming that the prediction was accom- 
plished, despaired of his safety, and erected an 
immense funeral pile, on which he heaped his wealth, 
and with which himself, his household, and palace 
were consumed. The book of Nahum was avowedly 



200 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

prophetic of the destruction of Nineveh ; and it is 
there foretold, " that the gates of the river shall be 
opened, and the palace shall be dissolved — Nineveh 
of old like a pool of water — with an overflowing 
flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof" 
The other predictions of the prophet are as literally 
described by the historian. He relates, that the 
king of Assyria, elated with his former victories, 
and ignorant of the revolt of the Bactrians, had 
abandoned himself to scandalous inaction ; had 
appointed a time of festivity, and supplied his 
soldiers with abundance of wine; and that the 
general of the enemy, apprised by deserters of their 
negligence and drunkenness, attacked the Assyrian 
army while abandoned to revelling, destroyed a great 
part of them, and drove the rest into the city. The 
words of the prophet were hereby verified : " While 
they were folden together as thorns, and while they 
are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as 
stubble fully dry." Much spoil was promised to the 
enemy : " Take the spoil of silver, take the spoil of 
gold ; for there is no end of the store and glory, out 
of all the pleasant furniture." Accordingly, the 
historian afiirms, that many talents of gold and 
silver, preserved from the fire, were carried to Ecba- 
tana. The prophet declares, that the city was not 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 201 

only to be destroyed by an overflowing flood, but 
the fire was also to devour it ; which exactly agrees 
with the account of the historian. 

The utter and perpetual destruction of the city 
was thus distinctly predicted : " The Lord will make 
an utter end of the place thereof. Affliction shall 
not rise up the second time ; she is empty, void, and 
waste. The Lord will stretch out his hand against 
the north, and destroy Assyria, and will make 
Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. 
How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts 
to lie down in." In the second century, Lucian, 
who was born on the banks of the Euphrates, testi- 
fied that Nineveh was utterly perished — that there 
was no vestige of it remaining — and that none 
could tell where it was once situated. A late trav- 
eller, who has visited that country, testifies, " that 
neither bricks, stones, nor other materials of build- 
ing," are now to be seen; but the ground is, in 
many places, grown over with grass, and such ele- 
vations are observable, as resemble the mounds left 
by the intrenchments and fortifications of ancient 
Roman camps ; and the appearances of other mounds 
and ruins less marked than even these, extending for 
ten miles and widely spread, and seeming to be the 
wreck of former buildings, show that Nineveh is left 



202 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

without any monument of royalty, without any token 
whatever of its splendor or wealth ; that it is indeed a 
desolation, " empty, void, and waste ; " its very ruins 
perished, and less than the wreck of what it was. 
" Such an utter ruin," says Bishop Newton, " has 
been made of it ; and such is the truth of the divine 
predictions." 

BABYLON. 

The prophecies respecting the taking of Babylon, 
its utter destruction, and the complete desolation 
which should reign where this proud city once stood, 
have been remarkably fulfilled. 

The very nations by whom Babylon was to be 
taken and destroyed, are predicted by name by the 
prophet Jeremiah. " Go up, O Elam ! (this was the 
ancient name of Persia,) besiege, O Media ! The 
Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the 
Modes ; for his device is against Babylon to destroy 
it." And Isaiah says, " Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; 
and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken 
unto the ground." " Thus saith the Lord, that saith 
imto the deep. Be dry; and I will dry up thy rivers; 
that saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and shall 
perform all my pleasure. And I will loose the loins 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 203 

of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates ; 
and the gates shall not be shut." " Thus saith the 
Lord to Cyrus his anointed, to subdue all nations 
before him." 

This prediction of Isaiah, in which Cyrus is 
named, must have been uttered at least two hundred 
years before he was born, and when the Persians 
were an obscure and inconsiderable nation. 

A confederacy having been formed between the 
Modes and Persians, and Cyrus having in person 
taken the command of the Persians, and having 
disciplined them with consummate skill, and inspired 
them with heroic courage, joined his uncle Cyaxares, 
(by Daniel called Darius the Mede,) and their united 
forces having conquered the Armenians, the Hyrca- 
nians, the Lydians, the Cappadocians, and other 
allies of the king of Babylon ; and having so treated 
all these conquered nations as to conciliate their 
friendship, and add their forces to their own, they 
marched towards the city of Babylon. Although 
Cyrus commenced his military career with a small 
army of Persians, yet, by conquest and wise policy, 
his army had become exceedingly numerous before 
he reached the famous city. But what could be 
done by courage or military skill against a city so 
defended on every side 1 This consummate general. 



204 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

as soon as he had arrived on the ground with his 
army, made it his first business, in company with 
some of his chief officers, to ride entirely round the 
walls, and to ascertain whether there was any weak 
point where an assault might successfully be made. 
But he found every part fully secured, so that there 
seemed no possibility of taking the city but by a 
long siege. He therefore sat down before it, and 
dug a trench entirely around the walls, and towers 
were erected, and every other preparation made for a 
regular siege. 

Thus, in the prophecy, it is said, " They camped 
against it round about. They put themselves in 
array against Babylon around about. They set 
themselves in array against Babylon, every man put 
in array." 

Another important circumstance distinctly noticed 
in the prophecy, is, the cowardice of the Babylon- 
ians. Formerly her armies were a terror to the 
whole earth, and nothing could withstand their 
fierce courage. But now, faint-heartedness had come 
over them. " The mighty men of Babylon have 
forborne to fight. They have remained in their 
holds. Their might have failed, they became as 
women." Their timidity was manifest in their shut- 
ting themselves up ; and all the challenges of their 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 205 

enemies could not provoke them to come out and 
meet them in the open field. Xenophon relates, 
that Cyrus challenged the king of Babylon to decide 
the contest by single combat, which he declined. 
The people within the walls, though very numerous, 
made no sallies from their gates ; nor did they 
use any eiforts to disperse or annoy the besiegers. 

Literally, " they remained in their hold, and the 
hands of the king of Babylon waxed feeble." Cyrus, 
as we have said, found every thing secure against 
assault; for what could battering rams, or other 
engines of war, accomplish against walls which were 
thirty, or, as some assert, fifty feet in thickness 1 

He was, therefore, not a little perplexed until the 
thought occurred, that an entrance might possibly 
be obtained by turning out of the channel the river 
Euphrates, which flowed through the city. This 
hazardous enterprise, as a last resort, was determined 
on, and the work was commenced, but the design 
was carefully concealed from the besieged; for, as 
Herodotus observes, if they had had the least inti- 
mation of the device, or if they had discovered the 
Persians while passing through, they could not only 
have prevented its execution, but have destroyed the 
whole army of Cyrus while pent up within the 
channel of the river. All that was necessary to 

18 



206 BEAUTIES or SACRED LITERATURE. 

prevent the Persians from entering was, to close the 
gates, which gave entrance to the city through the 
embankment built upon both sides of the river. 

To guard against the danger of discovery, Cyrus 
selected for the execution of this important but 
dangerous enterprise, the season of a great Baby- 
lonish festival, on which occasion he knew the 
whole population gave themselves up to revelling 
and drunkenness. 

The river was a full quarter of a mile wide, and 
twelve feet deep, but there was an artificial lake in 
the neighborhood, prepared to receive the surplus 
waters, when it overflowed its banks, or where, for 
any other reason, it was desirable to diminish the 
waters of the river. The scheme succeeded to their 
most sanguine expectation. The channel of the 
river being left nearly dry, the army of Cyrus entered 
by night. One detachment was placed where the 
river entered the city, and another where it left it ; 
and the Persian army entered so silently, and the 
inhabitants were so completely drowned in their 
drunken revels, that no alarm was sounded, and no 
care had been taken to close the gates leading to the 
river, no danger being apprehended on that side. 
So completely were the Babylonians surprised, 
that Cyrus had reached the royal palace before a 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 207 

messenger arrived to tell the king that the city was 
taken. The noise of the invading army, at first, 
was not distinguished from the mad tumult of the 
rioters. Even the guards stationed around the 
palace were found intoxicated, and slain ; when the 
Persians rushed into the splendid hall, where Bel- 
shazzar and his thousand lords, and wives, and con- 
cubines had been drinking out of the sacred vessels 
of the Lord's house, which had been impiously 
brought forth on this occasion. But their profane 
mirth had already been arrested before the arrival 
of the victorious Persians, by the appearance of a 
hand, writing certain words in a strange character 
on the wall. This had produced the utmost conster- 
nation in all the assembly; although none could 
decipher the writing, until Daniel was brought in, 
who quickly denounced the fatal destiny of the 
monarch, and the overthrow of his kingdom, — 
" And in that night was Belshazzar, the king of the 
Chaldeans, slain." 

How exactly the events, described above, were 
predicted, will be at once seen by the following 
quotations from the prophets. 

"I will dry up thy sea, and make thy springs 
dry ; that saith to the deep. Be dry^ I will dry up 
thy rivers^ 



208 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

" And one post did run to meet another, and one 
messenger to meet another, to show the king of 
Babylon that his city is taken at the end, and that 
the passages are shut." 

" But a snare was laid for Babylon. It was taken, 
and it was not aware. How is the praise of the 
whole earth surprised ! For thou hast trusted in 
thy wickedness and in thy wisdom, and thy know- 
ledge it hath perverted thee ; therefore shall evil 
come upon thee, and thou shalt not know whence it 
ariseth; and mischief shall come upon thee, and 
thou shalt not be able to put it oiF ; none shall save 
thee." " In their heat I will make their feasts, and 
I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, 
and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake, saith 
the Lord. I will make drunk her princes and her 
wise men, her captains and her rulers, and her 
mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep." 

" The gates [i. e. those from the river to the city] 
were not shut. The loins of kings were loosed to 
open before Cyrus the two-leaved gates." 

" The king, hearing a noise and tumult without, 
sent some to see whence it arose; but no sooner 
were the gates of the palace opened, than the 
Persians rushed in." " The king of Babylon heard 
the report of them. Anguish took hold of him." 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 209 

He and all about him perished. God had " num- 
bered his kingdom and finished it." It was " divided 
and given to the Medes and Persians." 

The multitude of soldiers who now entered the 
city, and the slaughter of the citizens in the streets, 
are exactly foretold : "I will fill thee with men as 
with caterpillars. Her young men shall fall in the 
streets, and all her men of war shall be cut off in 
that day." The number of the Persian army, which 
was reviewed immediately after the capture of the 
city, is said by Herodotus to have amounted to one 
hundred and twenty thousand horse, six thousand 
chariots of war, and six hundred thousand infantry. 

Cyrus issued a proclamation that the people should 
remain in their houses, with strict orders to slay 
every person who should be found in the streets. 
Cyrus now became master of all the hidden treasures 
of Babylon. " The treasures of darkness and hidden 
riches of secret places being given into his hand," 
that he might know " that the Lord, which had 
called him by his name, was the God of Israel." 

From the time of the capture of this famous city 
by Cyrus, her glory began to fade. God had pre- 
dicted her downfall, and his word never fails. After 
its first conquest, it was, according to Herodotus, 
reduced from an imperial to a tributary city ; which 

18* 



210 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

seems to be foretold by the prophet, when he says, — 
" Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter 
of Babylon ; sit on the ground, there is no throne, 
O daughter of the Chaldeans." 

The next step towards the dowfall of this famous 
city was after the rebellion against Darius. When 
he captured the city, he ordered the height of the 
walls to be reduced, and all the gates to be destroyed. 
To which the prophet alludes in express terms : — 
'' The wall of Babylon shall fall ; her walls shall be 
thrown down." Xerxes, after his return from his 
unfortunate Grecian expedition, entered the city and 
rifled its most valuable and sacred treasures, laid up 
in the Temple of Belus. This the prophet Jeremiah 
had foretold. " I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I 
will bring out of his mouth that which he has 
swallowed up. I will do judgment on the graven 
images of Babylon." 

No efforts made by the conquerors of Babylon to 
restore her glory, or even to prevent her decay, were 
at all successful. Cyrus made Babylon his usual 
place of residence, but his successors preferred other 
cities ; and when Alexander conquered Babylon, it 
was fully his purpose to restore that city to her 
pristine glory, but the counsel of Jehovah was 
adverse. The prophet had long before signified that 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 211 

all such attempts would prove ineiFectual. " Take 
balm for their pain, if so be that she may be healed. 
We would have healed Babylon, but she is not 
healed." The proximate cause of the rapid decline 
of Babylon was twofold; first, the turning of the 
river inundated the surrounding country, and filled 
it with stagnant pools ; secondly, the building of 
another city in the neighborhood drew off multi- 
tudes of inhabitants, who transferred their residence 
and wealth from the old to the new city. Babylon 
also was oppressed with some of the most cruel 
tyrants that ever ruled over any city. 

One of these, named Humerus, who lived about 
one hundred and thirty years before Christ, reduced 
many of the inhabitants to slavery on the slightest 
pretexts, burned the forum and some of the temples, 
and banished many of the people into Media. 

The cruelty of the conquerors of Babylon is 
strongly portrayed by the inspired pen. " They are 
cruel both in anger and fierce wrath, to lay the land 
desolate." This has been in an eminent degree 
verified, in the Persians and Modes, the Macedo- 
nians, the Parthians, the Syrians, the Homans, and 
the Saracens ; all of whom, in their turn, by their 
cruel anger and fierce wrath, assisted to render deso- 
late this once famous city, and these once beautiful 



212 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

and fertile regions. The decline of Babylon was 
gradual but constant. 

In the second century of the Christian era nothing 
remained but the walls ; and in the fourth century 
these were repaired to serve as an inclosure or park 
for wild beasts, and Babylon became a hunting- 
ground for the kings of Persia. Under the Saracens 
the desolation became complete, and for many ages 
past the following prediction has been literally ful- 
filled : " No man dwelleth there, and no son of man 
passeth by. Neither shall the Arabian pitch his 
tent there ; neither shall the shepherds make their 
folds there." The only remains of the former city 
are heaps of ruins and mounds of half decayed 
bricks, in exact conformity with the prediction of 
Jeremiah : " Babylon shall become heaps. Her 
foundations are fallen. She shall never be inhabited 
firom generation to generation." " Our path," says 
Mignan the traveller, " lay through great masses of 
ruined heaps on the site of shrunken Babylon ; and 
I am perfectly incapable of conveying an adequate 
idea of the dreary, lonely nakedness that appeared 
before us." Porter remarks, "that a silence pro- 
found as the grave, reigns throughout the ruins. 
Babylon is now a silent scene, a sublime solitude." 
According to Rauwolf, even as early as the sixteenth 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 213 

century, there was not within the limits of ancient 
Babylon a single human habitation : " The eye," 
says he, " wanders over a barren desert, in which 
the ruins are nearly the only indication that it was 
ever inhabited." 

" It is impossible," says Keppel, " to behold the 
scene, and not be reminded now exactly the predic- 
tions of Isaiah and Jeremiah have been fulfilled." 
As the wild Arabs inhabit the wilderness, and often 
visit this region, it may seem strange and improbable 
that they should never pitch their tent on the ruin- 
ous site of Babylon ; but Mignan informs us, that 
nothing will induce them to remain all night near 
the principal mound, as they have a superstitious 
belief that evil spirits dwelt there. He informs us 
that he was accompanied by six Arabs, well armed, 
and accustomed to the desert ; but no inducement 
could have prevailed on them to remain on the 
ground after night. 

Among the ruins, travellers inform us, there are 
many dens of wild beasts. On the very mound, 
supposed to have been produced by the ruins of 
the Temple of Belus, Porter saw three large lions. 
The hyena and the jackal abound there. Who can 
fail to see, in these circimistances, the exact fulfil- 
ment of that prediction, — " Wild beasts of the 



214 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

desert shall be there, and their houses shall be full 
of doleful creatures, and owls shall be there, and 
satyrs shall dance there." 

The western bank of the Euphrates has now dis- 
appeared, and the river, having no barrier, freely 
overflows the adjacent land, so that on this side a 
large part of the ruins of Babylon are inundated; 
and for a great distance, even after the river has 
subsided, the whole country is one continued swamp, 
which is entirely inaccessible to the traveller. 

To this the prophet seems to have alluded, w^hen 
he says, " The sea is come upon Babylon ; she is 
covered with the waves thereof" But that which, 
at first view, appears to be incompatible with this 
description, is nevertheless true. Babylon is de- 
scribed by the prophets as a "dry land, a wilderness, 
and a desert." But the fact is, that while on one 
side of the river the site is inundated, on the other 
it is exceedingly dry, and a mere arid desert. As 
far as the light of history reaches, among the struc- 
tures ever reared by the hands of men, the Temple 
of Belus seems to have been the most elevated. This 
temple was built on the foundation of the Tower of 
Babel, and, according to the lowest computation, 
was higher than the greatest of the Egyptian pyra- 
mids. The highest mound now among the ruins is 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 215 

supposed, by discerning travellers, to be on the site 
of this famous temple. This ruin covers more ground 
than the temple did when standing. This hill is 
called by the Arabs Birs Nimrud, Of this vast ruin 
Sir Eobert Ker Porter has given a very particular 
and interesting account. " On the summit of the 
hill are immense fragments of brickwork, of no 
determinate figures, tumbled together, and converted 
into vitrified masses." Some of these huge fragments 
measure twelve feet in height by twenty-four in 
circumference ; these fragments have been entirely 
preserved, while every thing else is crumbled to dust, 
because they have been exposed to the action of the 
fiercest fire ; they are completely molten. 

The high gates of the Temple of Belus, which 
were standing in the time of Herodotus, have been 
burnt with fire. The noble palaces of Babylon, the 
larger of which was surrounded by three walls of 
great extent, have entirely disappeared. Although 
the strength of the walls seemed to promise dura- 
bility, and almost to bid defiance to time ; yet now, 
of these palaces, the most splendid the world ever 
saw, nothing but mere vestiges of the walls which 
surrounded them remain. The circumference of this 
ruin is about half a mile, and its height one hundred 
and forty feet ; but it is a mass of confusion, the 



216 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

receptacle of wild beasts and venomous reptiles. 
Mignan says, " On passing over the loose stones 
and fragments of brickwork, which lay scattered 
through the immense fabric, and surveying the sub- 
limity of the ruins, I naturally recurred to the time 
when these walls stood proudly in their original 
splendor ; when the halls were the scenes of festive 
magnificence ; and when they resounded to the 
voices of those whom death has long since swept 
from the earth. This very pile was once the seat of 
luxury and vice, now abandoned to decay, and 
exhibiting a melancholy instance of the retribution 
of heaven. It stands alone. The solitary habitation 
of the goatherd marks not the forsaken site." " Thy 
pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of 
the viols ; the worms are spread under thee, and the 
worms cover thee." 

In this famous city there was nothing more won- 
derful than the height and thickness of the walls. 
They were so broad, that six chariots abreast could 
be drawn on them, and their original height is said to 
have been three hundred and fifty feet. Darius lower- 
ed these walls ; but where are they now ? Not a ves- 
tige of them any where remains. It was predicted that 
" Babylon should be an astonishment. Every one that 
goeth by Babylon shall be astonished." How pre- 



PROPHECIES OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 217 

cisely this accords with, the feelings of modern travel- 
lers, may be learned from their own language. 

Porter says, " I could not but feel an indescribable 
awe, in thus passing, as it were, into the gates of the 
fallen Babylon." 

" I cannot portray," says Mignan, " the overpow- 
ering sensation of reverential awe that possessed my 
mind, while contemplating the extent and magnitude 
of ruin and devastation on every side." 

In another place Porter adds the following inter- 
esting remarks, expressive of his feelings while 
surveying the scene : — " The whole view was 
particularly solemn. The majestic stream of the 
Euphrates, wandering in solitude, like a pilgrim 
monarch, through the silent ruins of his devastated 
kingdom, still appeared a noble river, under all the 
disadvantages of its desert-tracked course. Its banks 
were hoary with reeds ; and the gray osier willows 
were yet there, on which the captives of Israel hung 
up their harps ; and, while Jerusalem was not, 
refused to be comforted. But how is the rest of 
the scene changed since then ! At that time those 
broken hills were palaces — those long undulating 
mounds, streets — this vast solitude, filled with the 
busy subjects of the proud daughter of the east, 
now wasted with misery ; her habitations are not to 

19 



218 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. 

be found, and for herself, ' the worm is spread over 
her.' " 

The Rev. Alexander Keith concludes with these 
pertinent remarks : " Has not every purpose of the 
Lord been performed against Babylon 1 What 
mortal shall give a negative answer to the questions 
subjoined by the author of these very prophecies'? 
' Who hath declared this from ancient time 1 Who 
hath told it from that time 1 Have not I, the Lord ? 
And there is no God beside me ; declaring the end 
from the beginning, and from ancient time the things 
that are not yet done ; saying, my counsel shall 
stand, and I will do all my pleasure.' Is it possible 
there can be any attestation of the truth of the pro- 
phecy, if not witnessed here 1 

" The records of the human race, it has been said 
with truth, do not present a contrast more striking 
than that between the primeval magnificence of 
Babylon, and its long desolation. How few spots 
are there on earth, of which we have so clear and 
faithful a picture as prophecy gave of fallen Baby- 
lon, when no spot on earth resembled it less than its 
present desolate, solitary site ! Or could any prophe- 
cies, respecting any single place, be more precise, or 
wonderful, or numerous, or true, or more gradually 
accomplished, through many generations ? " 



MAEY. 



BY REV. C. C. VANARSDALE, D. D. 



Dear name ! — a name bless'd both by God and man ! 
For she whom God honor'd in mercy's great plan, 
Through whom all life's glory and hope have been 

given, — 
She bore that sweet name — the selected of Heaven, 
Though deeply they err who their worship bestow 
On the creature thus chosen, God's goodness to show ; 
Yet dear is that name — o'er all others the best, 
For Mary was mother of Jesus the blest. 

And Mary again was the friend of his heart, 
Who loved the pure teaching he came to impart ; 
How meekly she sat at his feet, and received 
Those words which gave life to the soul that believed ! 
How lowly and gentle the mind she displayed, 
As she heard — and gladly his lessons obeyed ! 
" Now Jesus loved Mary" — the faithful, the pure — 
With love which no wealth of the world can secure. 



I (j7^^5 




220 BEAUTIES OF SACRED LITERATURE. '^ 

And Mary again, at the dim dawn of day, 
To the tomb of her Lord first hurried away ; 
And there she stood watching, all bathed in her tears. 
Till from Jesus' lips, " Mary," fell on her ears ; 
That name, perhaps first, which his infant lips spoke, 
Again was the first when from death he awoke ; 
And Mary, the pardon'd, thus cheered by his word. 
Was the first to proclaim her yet living Lord. 

O thus may all those, who that blessed name bear, 
To Jesus in faith and affection repair ; 
May each of them hear, through the gospel, his voice. 
In love saying, " Mary," and in him rejoice ; 
Then bearing his cross, and obeying his word. 
May they follow, like them, their glorified Lord, 
Till, their lives to his service in faithfulness given. 
They shall join, at their death, all those Marys in 
heaven. 



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